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THE ALO MAN 









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CHILDREN OF THE WORLD 


THE ALO MAN 

STORIES FROM THE CONGO 

^ BY 

MARA Lf PRATT-CHADWICK 

AND 

LA LAMPREY 



Illustrated by Bollin Crampton 



1921 

WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 


WORLD BOOK COMPANY 


THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE 
Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson 
Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York 
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 


This little book is the third in the Children 
of the World, a series of books for young 
readers which are designed to open up to 
them the study of geography and history as 
living subjects. “ Paz and Pablo: A Story 
of Two Little Filipinos” and “Sunshine 
Lands of Europe ” have already been pub- 
lished, and other volumes will ■ be added 
to the series from time to time, until stories 
of the life of children in every land are told 



JUN 25 1921 



cw: CLAM— i 


Copyright, 1921, by World Book Company 
Copyright in Great Britain 
All rights reserved 


©CI.A614831 




M i 


W] AT W 11-21 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Drum in the Forest 7 

II. The String of Beads 17 

III. The Leopard and the Dog 29 

IV. The Cat and the Rat 42 

V. The Jackal and His Tracks 55 

VI. Why the Canoe Upset 68 

VII. The Trail of the Elephant 83 

VIII. The Customs of the Ants 96 

IX. The Feast in the Village 109 

X. How the Caravan Set Forth 124 

XI. The Hyrax and the Elephant 141 

XII. A Voice in the Forest 156 


[ 5 ] 



THE ALO MAN 


CHAPTER I 


THE DRUM IN THE FOREST 


M POKO the boy and Nkunda the girl were 
squatting in the firelight just outside 
their mother’s hut, where they could smell the 
smells from the cooking pots the women were 
tending so carefully. Their father, the chief 
of the tiny village, had gone with his men two 
days before on a trading journey to one of the 
great markets. They should have been at home 
before this. 

Mpoko was busy winding a precious piece of 
brass wire round the handle of his pet hunting 
spear, and Nkunda was watching him. Each 
man or boy of the village had his favorite spear 



[ 7 ] 


with its leaf-shaped iron blade, and the wire on 
the handle was useful as well as ornamental, 
for it gave a good grip. Iron is found almost 
everywhere in Africa, and the native black- 
snjiths made not only spear heads but knife 
blades and little axes. They could not make 
brass, which is a mixture of copper and zinc, but 
all traders had brass rods in their stores, and 
these could be hammered into all sorts of shapes. 
When these rods were first brought into the 
country, they were made about thirty inches 
long; but there was so much demand for smaller 
pieces to use in trading like small change, that 
they were now made only six or seven inches 
in length. Nkunda had a piece of brass wire 
almost as long as Mpoko’s, but hers was coiled 
round her slender brown wrist as a bracelet. 

In Central Africa, supper time is about six 
o’clock all the year round. From one season to 
another, night and day are nearly equal and 
the time of sunrise and of sunset changes hardly 
more than fifteen minutes throughout the year. 
The year begins with the first heavy rain of the 
wet season, and when the new green shoots come 
out on the spurge thickets the people know that 
the new year is at hand. 

The evening meal is the most important one 


[ 8 ] 


of the day, sometimes the only regular meal. 
Soon after sunrise on this particular day the 
women, as usual, had picked up their hoes, their 
baskets, and their babies and had gone out to 
work on the farms outside the village. They 
had come back in the middle of the afternoon 
to begin preparing supper, which was a matter 
of some hours’ work, because there were so many 
different things to be done. Grain for bread or 
mush had to be ground on heavy stone slabs, 
vegetables must be made ready for cooking, 
water, fetched from the spring, wood brought, 
and fires made. Mpoko and Nkunda had 
helped a little, and they knew where, in a heap 
of hot ashes, the sweet potatoes from their own 
corner of the field were baking. There would 
be boiled fowl and cassava bread, and maybe 
some stewed fruit. 

Besides helping their mothers, the children 
of the village had their own special work, — to 
drive in the goats from the fields, — and they 



had done this before sunset. All the shaggy, 
bleating little animals were now safe in the pen 
built of logs and roofed with planks, and Mpoko 
had seen to it that stakes were set firmly across 
the entrance to keep them in and keep out wild 
beasts. Even as the children sat here in the 
firelight they heard from time to time the hunt- 
ing call of a leopard or hyena, but no fierce 
prowling creature of the jungle would come near 
the fires. 

The cooking fires were in the middle of the 
open space around which the village was built. 
The village itself was nothing more than a 
rather irregular circle of huts inside a fence. 
Mpoko and Nkunda were sitting at the very 
edge of the great black shadow that closed in 
the lighted space and, beyond the huts, melted 
into the deep velvet darkness of the forest. 
The forest was all around them, and it was full 
of the noises of the night. The wind was 
whispering in the great leaves and walking in 
the tall grasses; the chitter and scamper of 
some small animal or the call of sleepy birds 
now and then broke the silence of the night. 
Under the many rustlings and whisperings there 
was always to be heard the voice of a mighty 
river flowing through the wilderness. 


[ 10 ] 


The people of the village knew a great deal 
about this river, but they could not have found 
it on a map, for they had never seen such a 
thing. White men call it the Congo. This 
was the name of a chief who ruled the country 
near the mouth of the river more than five hun- 
dred years ago, before even the first Portuguese 
explorers came. It was the Portuguese who 
gave his name to the river. But the Congo has 
many names in the twenty-five hundred miles 
of its length. Here in the jungle it has a very 
long name which means The-great-river-out-of- 
the-lake-that-drowns-the-locust-who-tries-to-fly- 
across. If a person knows, as the Bantu people 
do, how far a locust can fly without alighting, 
this name for the great lake is really useful. 
The whole of the name is Mwerukatamuvudanshi, 
but nobody used it unless the chiefs were having 
a formal council, and on the white men’s maps 
the lake is called Mweru. In other parts of its 
course the river was called after whatever lakes, 
mountains, or cataracts there might be in the 
neighborhood. 

Mpoko and Nkunda talked a little about the 
river as they squatted there in the warm dark- 
ness. Mpoko had been promised that he should 
go fishing when the canoes went downstream 


[ 11 ] 


to mend a bridge that was shaky, and Nkunda 
promised to help him make new nets for the 
fishing. He finished winding the wire round 
the spear handle and began to polish it with 
great care. 

Then very far away in the forest they heard 
the tapping of a drum. 

The sound of a drum in the African jungle 
always means something. It may mean a 
village dance; it may mean news; it may mean 
sudden danger. It is not like any other noise 
in the forest. 

On the other side of the mountain, the great 
towering mass of stone beyond the forest, was 
the country of Tswki, the Snake, who was not 
friendly to the river villages. When he was 
getting ready to make war, whichever village 
heard of it first, warned the others. Messengers 
were not needed to take the warning, for the 
sound of the drum could be heard over lake 
and marsh, through tangles of wild jungle 
where a man would have to cut his way at 
every step. The drum was made of wood, 
covered with oxhide stretched tight, or with 
the skin of a large snake or lizard. 

The children had been the first to hear the 
tapping, because they were nearest to the 


[ 12 ] 


ground, but in a minute all the others, old and 
young, heard it too, and listened. They stopped 
whatever they were doing and stood as still as 
trees, and listened, and listened. 

Then through the blackness of the forest, far 
away, there sounded singing, and Mpoko and 
Nkunda were not afraid any more. This was 
not one of Tswki’s war parties that was coming; 
it was their own men, singing all together to 
forget their weariness on the last miles of the 
trail. A Central African carrier will travel with 
a load of sixty pounds from fifteen to thirty 
miles a day. And this is not walking on a 
level road; the carriers go through a wilderness 
without anything like a road, the trail often 
only a few inches wide. They may have to 
climb steep hills, scramble over boulders, or 
force their way through matted grasses ten and 
twelve feet high. There are no pack animals. 
Everything is carried on men’s backs, and 



[ 13 ] 



during most of the year the mercury is at about 
eighty in the shade. When the men sing toward 
the end of a journey, it is likely to be a sign 
that they are very tired indeed. Often they 
beat time with their sticks on their loads. But 
now they surely had a drum, and somebody was 
playing it. 

At last Mpoko, listening very closely, caught 
a line or two of the song, and he jumped up, 
whirling his spear round his head and shout- 
ing, “The Alo Man! The Alo Man!” Then 
Nkunda, too, sprang up and began to dance 
and whirl round and round, clapping her hands 
and singing, “The Alo Man! The Alo Man is 
coming!” 

Every one was glad. The Alo Man, the 
wandering story teller who went from place to 
place telling stories and making songs, came 
only once in a very long time. When he did 
come, he told the most interesting and exciting 
stories that any one in the village had ever 
heard. He knew old stories and new ones, 
and it was hard to say which were the finest. 
No one could make the people see pictures in 
their minds as he could. No one knew so many 
wise sayings and amusing riddles. No one had 
seen so many wonderful and interesting things 


[ 14 ] 


among the people of so many different tribes. 
Even when some one could remember and tell 
over again the stories that the Alo Man had 
told, they did not sound as they did when he 
told them himself. 

Even the dogs knew that something was going 
to happen and began to bark excitedly, and the 
slaty-blue, speckled guinea hens half woke and 
ruffled their feathers and gave hoarse croaks 
of surprise. The beat of the drum and the 
singing voices grew louder and louder, until the 
people waiting in the firelight caught the tune 
and joined in the song, keeping time with the 
clapping of their hands curved like cymbals. 

Then there was a blaze of torches in the 
forest, the dogs burst into a wild chorus of 
yelping and baying, and out of the dark they 
came, the whole company of them. Every 
man was keeping step to the splendid new song 
that the Alo Man led. Each one marched into 
the open circle of firelight, flung down his pack, 
and began to tell the news to his own family 
and ask for something to eat as soon as it could 
possibly be had. 

They were all glad — the whole village — to 
see the Alo Man, and he was just as glad to see 
them. His white teeth flashed and his eyes 


[ 15 ] 


shone as he greeted one old friend after another, 
and asked and answered questions as fast as 
his tongue would go. Cooking pots were hustled 
off the fire and good things ladled out, and soon 
the feasting and laughter and story-telling and 
singing of the Alo Man’s visit had fairly begun. 


[ 16 ] 


CHAPTER II 


THE STRING OF BEADS 

T HERE was great chattering in the village 
over the unloading of the packs with the 
various wares brought from the market. The 
marketing arrangements of wild Africa are very 
curious. There are four days in a Congo week, 
— Konzo, Nkenge, Nsona, and Nkandu, — and 
on at least one of the four days a market is held 
somewhere near every important village. All 
markets held on Konzo are called Konzo markets, 
those held on Nkenge are called Nkenge markets, 
and so on. Each of the four kinds of markets 
is in a different place, but there is one of the 
four within five miles of every town. In the 
village where Mpoko and Nkunda lived, the 
people had to go four miles to the Konzo market, 
nine to the Nkenge market, sixteen to the 
Nsona and twenty to the Nkandu, but this 
last market was quite near the next village 
downstream. 

Some of these markets were noted for certain 
goods. Mpoko’s mother could always depend 
on pigs being on sale at the Nkenge market, 
and whoever had a pig to sell would be likely 


[ 17 ] 


to take it there. At the Konzo market, four 
miles away, were good pots, calabashes, and 
saucepans, some of which were made by women 
in their village, for one of the old grandmothers 
was rather famous for her pottery. Other 
markets were known for palm wine, iron work, 
oil, or some other specialty, and besides these 
things cassava roots, peanuts, kwanga (native 
bread), palm oil, beans and other vegetables, 
grains and fowls were generally sold in all 
markets. 

Besides these markets, larger markets were 
held occasionally, from one to another of which 
the traders traveled with things not made in 
the country. Besides the brass rods, blue 
beads were sometimes used as a kind of money, 
a farthing string of a hundred beads being 
passed from hand to hand; or it might be used 
to buy food in small quantities, ten or fifteen 
blue beads three eighths of an inch long and 



[ 18 ] 


about a quarter of an inch thick being used as 
small change. 

A great deal of produce was simply swapped 
from one person to another. A man might 
gather a quantity of some produce like tobacco, 
rubber, raffia, palm oil, or grain, at one market 
and another, and take it finally to the great 
market to exchange for beads, brass, calico, or 
whatever else he found there. Salt is so rare 
in some parts of Africa that it is used for money, 
and a man will work as a porter so many days 
for so many bags of salt. When the people 
make salt on the shores of an inland lake, they 
have to gather the salty sand and wash it out 
in pots specially made, with little holes in the 
bottom into which the salt water runs; then the 
water is dried away over slow fires and the salt 
scraped off the sides of the kettle. It takes less 
time and labor to earn salt ready made than to 
make it in this way. Salt is also made from 
grass ashes. 

The packs of the village men had in them not 
only salt, but many pieces of gay-colored cloth, 
beads, and wire. Nkunda felt that hers was 
the best share of all, when her mother called 
her to have hung round her neck a string of 
bright red coral beads. No other little girl 


[ 19 ] 


had a string half so pretty, Nkunda thought. 
The more she fingered the little, smooth, 
scarlet drops of her necklace, the more she 
admired them. 

Seeing her delight, the Alo Man grinned and 
showed all his white teeth. 

“Perhaps they will bring you luck,” he said, 
“as the youngest sister’s beads did in the 
story.” 

Of course, after that, every one wanted to 
hear the story. 

The Alo Man settled himself cross-legged on 
a mat, all the listeners squatted down within 
easy hearing distance, and he began the story 
of the String of Beads. 

I often am reminded [he said] of the three 
sisters who lived in a land many days’ journey 
from here. Each of them had a string of beads, 
but the youngest sister, her beads were of red 
coral, and the others, their beads were only 
common cowrie shells. Naturally, they hated 
her, and one day when they had all been bathing 
in the river, the older sisters hid their beads in 
the sand. 

“See,” said the eldest sister as the youngest 
sister came out of the water, “we have thrown 


[ 20 ] 


our beads into the river, where there is a strong 
water-goblin who will give us back twice as 
many. Throw your own beads into the river 
and then you will have two strings of coral 
beads, and two is always better than one.” 

“Except when you have a lame foot,” said 
the other sister, giggling. 

The youngest sister believed what they said, 
and threw her beads into the river, and they 
went down, down, down to the bottom of the 
deepest pool and did not come up again. 

Then the two elder sisters laughed and took 
their own beads and hung them round their 
necks, and filled their water jars and went 
home. 

“How foolish I was,” said the youngest sister, 
sadly. “I wonder if the river would not give 
them back to me if I should ask very 
politely? ” 

She began to walk along the bank, saying, 
“ Water, water, please give me back my beads, 
my pretty beads!” And the water answered, 
“Go down the stream! Go down the stream!” 

[The Alo Man made his voice sound exactly 
like the gurgle and splash of the ripples.] 

She went on a little way and asked the river 
again to give back her beads. And again the 


[ 21 ] 


river answered, “Go down the stream! Go 
down the stream!” 

The youngest sister went along the river 
bank until she could no longer see the village. 
She had never been so far away from it before. 
At last she came to a place where the river 
leaped over a great cliff. Under the waterfall 
was a hut with an old woman sitting at the door. 
She was bent and wrinkled and very, very ugly, 
and she looked up as the youngest sister looked 
down at her from the bank. 

“Do not laugh at me!” said the old woman. 
“I am ugly now, but once I was beautiful as 
you are.” 

“I am not laughing at you, good mother,” 
said the youngest sister. “I should like to do 
something to help you.” 

“You are very kind, my child,” said the old 
woman. “Will you be so good as to bind up 
my wounds and give me water to drink?” 

The youngest sister took a strip of her gar- 
ment and bound up the old woman’s wounds 
and fed and comforted her as if she had been 
the old woman’s own daughter. Scarcely had 
she done this when the old woman caught her 
by the arm. “My child,” she said, “you have 
come to a place where a terrible giant lives. 


[ 22 ] 



[ 23 ] 








Every one who comes down the river is in danger 
of falling into his hands. But do not be afraid; 
he shall not hurt you. Hark! there he comes 
now, like a great wind that brings the rain.” 

Sure enough, the wind began to blow, and 
the rain poured, and the lightning flashed, and 
it grew very cold. The old woman hid the 
youngest sister behind a wall. 

Then the giant came to the bank of the 
river. 

“Some one has come to the hut,” said he, in 
a great roaring voice. “ I am hungry. Bring 
her out and let me have her for my supper.” 

“But you must have your sleep first,” said 
the old woman. 

“Yes,” said the giant, “it is true; I am very 
weary.” 

Then the giant lay down and went to sleep. 

When he was sound asleep the old woman 
led the youngest sister out from behind the 
wall, and hung round her neck a string of beads 
more beautiful than any she had ever seen, and 
put rings of gold on her arms and on her ankles. 
Around her waist she hung a kirtle of the softest 
and finest kidskin, with copper fringe, and 
over her shoulders she threw a silver jackal 
skin. In her hand she placed a magic stone. 


[ 24 ] 


“When you reach the river bank,” said the 
old woman, “press the stone to your lips. Then 
throw it over your shoulder, and it will return 
to me.” 

The youngest sister did as the old woman 
told her, and very soon she reached the place 
where she lived with her two sisters. They 
looked with the greatest surprise at her beautiful 
dress and ornaments and asked where she had 
found them. When she told them an old 
woman had given them to her, they said, without 
waiting to hear the story, “We too will go to 
the old woman,” and throwing their beads into 
the river they ran along the banks, calling to 
the waters to return them. 

After so long a time they came to the hut 
where the old woman sat. The giant was no 
longer there, and the old woman was sitting 
crouched in the doorway as before. 

“Do not laugh at me,” said the old woman. 
“I am ugly now, but once I was young and 
beautiful as you are.” 

The two sisters laughed at this, and ridiculed 
the old woman, and called her all the jeering 
names they could think of. 

“Will you not bind up my wounds and give 
me water to drink?” asked the old woman. 


[ 25 ] 


But the sisters said that they had never 
heard of such impudence. 

“Where are the bracelets and beads you have 
to give away?” asked the elder sister. 

“Where are your mantles and kirtles with 
fringe?” asked the younger. “We come for 
these, not to waste our time on you. We must 
make haste and go home.” 

“Indeed, I think you must,” said the old 
woman, “for this place is the home of a giant 
who comes in the form of wind and rain, and I 
hear him coming now!” 

Then the hut sank under the waters, and the 
maidens found themselves standing on the 
bank without even their own beads to deck 
themselves with. That very moment they 
heard the wind and the rain sweeping through 
the trees, and they turned and ran as fast as 
their feet would carry them, back to their own 
village, while the wind and the rain howled 
behind them and the giant pelted them with 
stones. 



[ 26 ] 



All the people laughed and shouted over the 
ill fortune of the two sellish sisters. Nkunda, 
where she lay curled up at her mother’s side, 
fingered her beads and wondered if the youngest 
sister’s beads from beneath the waterfall could 
have been any prettier than these. In the part 
where the giant came in, the story sent delightful 
shivers down all their backs, lor they could 
every one remember storms in which the great 
wind had shaken the trees like an invisible 
giant and the rain had come pelting down like 
stones. Sometimes, after a storm, the path 
of the wind through the forest looked like the 
track of a huge giant who had gone walking up 
and down, twisting olf boughs and rooting up 
trees merely to show what he could do. During 
one of these storms the temperature often falls 
from thirty to forty degrees in half an hour. 

Nkunda had seen a silvery jackal skin and a 
copper-fringed robe among her mother’s treas- 
ures, but one thing in the story puzzled her. 
“Mother,” she said softly, “what is gold?” 

The Alo Man heard her and smiled. “Have 
you never seen gold?” he asked. 

The children shook their heads. Gold was 
not found in that part of the country. 

Then the Alo Man explained that in the 


[ 27 ] 


streams of other parts of the country the people 
found lumps of a shining yellow metal softer 
and more beautiful than iron, for which the 
traders would pay much cloth and many brass 
rods. When the headman heard what they 
were talking about, he showed the children a 
little bright round bangle on his arm, and told 
them that that was gold. It was really, though 
no one there knew it, a half-sovereign lost by 
some trader, or perhaps given in mistake for a 
sixpence, which is exactly the same size. The 
headman had kept it, first because of its beauty, 
and then because a trader had told him that it 
was worth as much as ten pounds of rubber, or 
more than a hundred pounds of palm kernels, 
or a load of palm oil, or about thirty-five pounds 
of coffee. Nkunda thought that the little piece 
of gold was rather like a magic stone. 


[ 28 ] 


CHAPTER III 


THE LEOPARD AND THE DOG 

O N the third night of the Alo Man’s stay in 
the village there was a great disturbance 
out near the goat pen. The frightened bleating 
of the goats was almost drowned by the barking 
and growling of dogs, and the angry snarl of 
some fierce animal. 

Some of the hunters caught up their spears 
and ran to see what the matter was, and Mpoko, 
catching up his own little spear, raced after 
them, for he could hear the furious barking of 
his own dog in the pack. Even the baby 
brother, who could only just stand on his feet, 
lifted his head and listened, saying, “Mfwa! 
Mfwa!” Mpoko’s dog was one of the family; 
he had played with the children ever since he 
was a little yellow-brown flop-eared puppy. 



[ 29 ] 


But the trouble was soon over. Before any 
one had had time to ask many questions, the 
hunters came back in triumph with the body of 
a big, fierce leopard. He had leaped upon the 
roof of the goat pen and tried to break in, but 
the dogs had found it out at once. They had 
set up such a baying and yelping that the robber 
was frightened, and he was trying to get away 
when the hunters arrived with their spears. 
They tied his paws together and slung him over 
a pole carried on their shoulders, and tomorrow 
he would be taken about to all the villages and 
exhibited. And the chief would have the skin. 

Mpoko was very proud to be able to tell his 
sister that he had seen the leopard killed, and 



[ 30 ] 


that his dog had been in the very thick of the 
fight. Moreover, he was sure that when he 
flung his own spear at the leopard it had gone 
through the skin somewhere., even if he could 
not point out the exact place. 

“Mfwa! Mfwa!” said the baby, with his fat 
fists waving at the dog, and all the dogs strutted 
about, very proud of their night’s work. 

“I wonder why dogs hate a leopard so,” said 
Nkunda, as the excitement quieted down. 

“My dog belongs to me, and he knows the 
leopard is my enemy,” said Mpoko. 

“Cats and dogs hate each other too, and the 
cat is not my enemy,” said Nkunda, trying to 
coax her pet cat down from the branch of a 
tree where she crouched, hissing at the dogs. 

“Cats and dogs always hate each other,” 
said Mpoko, and he seemed to think that that 
was reason enough. 

“There is a good reason why the dog and the 
leopard do not like each other,” said the Alo 



[ 31 ] 


Man. Then he told the story of the Leopard 
and the Dog. 


I often tell of the time when all the animals 
lived in a country by themselves, and the 
mother of leopards had two fine young cubs in 
her cave in the forest. As they grew older, 
she knew she must go out to find food for them, 
and she was afraid that if she left them alone, 
they would be stolen from her. 

She began to look about among the animals 
to find some one to take care of her cubs while 
she went hunting. 

“What will you give me to come and take care 
of your cubs?” asked the Hyena. 

“I will give you a good home in my cave and 
plenty of food,” said the Leopard. 

“He-yah! he-yah! he-yah!” laughed the 
Hyena, in a loud, harsh voice that almost 
frightened the Leopard herself. 



[ 32 ] 


“Your voice is too loud,” she said. “You 
would make such a noise that my cubs would 
be frightened to death.” 

The Hyena laughed again louder than before 
and went away to tell how he had scared the 
Leopard with his laughing. 

“What will you give me to take care of your 
cubs?” called the Owl up in the tree top. 

“I will give you a good home in my cave and 
plenty of food,” said the Leopard. 

“Hoo! hoo! hoo-oo!” hooted the Owl, glaring 
down at the Leopard with great round eyes 
that almost frightened the Leopard herself. 

“Your eyes are too large and bright,” said 
the Leopard. “My cubs would be frightened 
out of their wits when you stared at them.” 

The Owl hooted even louder than before and 
flew away to tell all the animals how he had 
frightened the Leopard by staring at her. 

“What will you give me to take care of your 
cubs?” asked the Snake from the tall grass. 

“I will give you a good home in my cave and 
plenty of food,” said the Leopard. 

“Tsz! tsz! tsz!” hissed the Snake, so loudly 
that the Leopard jumped and was almost 
frightened at the noise. 

“I do not want you to take care of my cubs,” 


[ 33 ] 


said the Leopard. “If they heard you hiss like 
that, they would be frightened to death.'' 

The Snake hissed again louder than before, 
and slid away through the tall grass to tell all 
the other animals how he had startled the 
Leopard by hissing at her. 

“What will you give me to take care of your 
cubs?” asked the Dog. 

“I will give you a good home in my cave and 
plenty of food,” said the Leopard. 

“Mfwa! Mfwa!” barked the Dog, wagging 
his tail as hard as he could, and grinning so that 
every one of his white teeth showed. The 
Leopard looked at him and was pleased. 

[Here the Alo Man, who had imitated the 
voice of each animal in the story, barked so well 
that all the dogs barked and whined, and came 
to rub their heads against his legs. Everybody 
laughed, and it really seemed as if the dogs 
understood the story as well as any one.] 

The Leopard went to her cave, with the Dog 
trotting after her and sniffing at her tracks. 
She gave him a good supper of rabbit bones, and 
when she told him how to take care of the cubs 
he listened very carefully. 

The next day the Leopard went out to hunt, 
and the Dog stayed in the cave and did exactly 


[ 34 ] 


as he had been told. After a while the Leopard 
came back, dragging a fine Antelope. 

“This is for my supper and the cubs’ supper,” 
she said, “and tomorrow you shall have the 
bones for your dinner.” 

The Dog thought of the good dinner he would 
have off those large bones, and he wagged his 
tail and grinned. 

“But remember this,” went on the Leopard, 
“you must never take bones outside the cave. 
We never eat outside our caves, but always 
inside. If people change their customs, there 
is no telling what will happen.” 

Next day the Leopard went to hunt, and the 
Dog lay down across the doorway of the cave 
and watched over the cubs. At dinner time 
he began to gnaw at the bones of the Antelope, 
as he had been told, inside the cave. But it was 
inconvenient. The rock floor was uneven, and 



[ 35 ] 


he could not get his teeth into the bones properly. 
When he cracked the bone to get at the marrow 
he got some earth into it, and he did not like 
that at all. 

“I may as well take the bones out on the 
clean grass and finish my dinner,” said the Dog 
to himself. “Nobody will ever know.” 

But when he had taken the bones out of the 
cave upon the grass, the strangest things began 
to happen. The bones began to move about 
as if they were coming to life. Before the Dog 
could catch them and drag them back into the 
cave, one of the great leg-bones of the Antelope 
hit a Leopard cub on the head and killed it 
dead. 

This was a dreadful thing indeed. The Dog 
had never dreamed of hurting the cub. He 
dragged all the bones back into the cave as 
quickly as he could, for fear the other cub might 
be killed. He could not think what he should 
do in this terrible situation, and while he stood 
trembling and whimpering with fear and grief, 
he heard the Leopard coming. 

“I will try to hide the dead cub until the 
Leopard has gone to sleep,” he said to himself, 
“and then I will run away.” 

The Leopard came up to the cave, dragging a 


[ 36 ] 


fine fat wild pig. First of all she asked, “Are 
the cubs well and happy?” 

The Dog was very much frightened, but he 
went into the cave and fetched out the live 
cub. “See how well he looks,” he said. 

The Leopard looked the cub all oyer and 
licked it with her strong tongue. Then she 
said, “This one seems very well. Now show 
me the other.” 

The Dog took the live cub back into the cave 
and brought it out again. The two cubs looked 
so much alike that he had never been able to 
tell them apart, and he thought that perhaps 
the Leopard would be deceived. 

But the Leopard gave one look at the cub 
and then sprang at the Dog. 

“You stupid creature,” she snarled, “do you 
think you can fool me in that way?” 

The Dog made one dash away from the cave 
entrance and down the path through the forest, 
with the Leopard at his heels. He ran out of 
the forest and across the plain, up hills and down 
valleys, with the Leopard at his heels. He ran 
until he was almost dead, and when he had 
hardly strength to go another step he saw a 
hollow tree with a hole in it big enough for him 
to get into, but too small for the Leopard to 


[ 37 ] 


follow him. Into it he went, his tail curled 
between his legs and all four feet gathered under 
him. Hard as she tried, the Leopard could 
not quite reach him with her paw. 

In the tree sat a Monkey, watching the 
goings-on and chattering with excitement. The 
Leopard looked up and saw him. 

“Come down out of that tree and watch this 
hole for me,” said the Leopard. “I am going 
to gather sticks and kindle a fire to burn up this 
good-for-nothing Dog.” 

The Monkey dared not refuse, and he came 
down and sat in front of the hole. 

When the Leopard had gone away, the Dog 
peeped out very cautiously. 

“I know where there is a tree full of ripe 
nuts,” he said to the Monkey. “If you will 
let me get away, I will show you where 
it is.” 

“But I am afraid of the Leopard,” chattered 
the Monkey. 

“The Leopard will never know,” said the 
Dog. “When the tree burns, she will think 
that I am burning inside of it.” 

Finally the Monkey let the Dog out, and he 
crept into the grass and hid, for he saw the 
Leopard coming back with a load of sticks. 


[ 38 ] 


“Have you kept close watch of the hole?” 
asked the Leopard. 

‘‘I have not gone away for a minute,” said 
the Monkey. “I have kept my eyes on the hole 
ever since you went away.” 

Then the Leopard made a fire and the tree 
began to blaze up. 

“Hear the Dog’s bones crackle!” chattered 
the Monkey as the branches began to snap in 
the flames. 

The Dog thought that this might be a good 
time for him to escape through the grass, 
but the Leopard saw the grass wave where he 
was hiding, and she made a quick jump for the 
place. Away ran the Dog once more for dear 
life, with the Leopard coming after him in great 
leaps. 

It would have been a sad day for the Dog if 
there had not been coming that way a party 



[ 39 ] 


of Men. He rushed up to them and crouched 
at the feet of the Chief and looked up into his 
face for protection. 

When the Chief saw the Leopard, who had 
often carried off goats and cattle from his vil- 
lage, and looked down at the panting, terrified 
Dog, he was sorry for the Dog and, bending 
over, patted him on the head. 

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “The Leopard 
shall not hurt you.” 

The Leopard looked at the sharp spears of 
the Chief and his followers, and went growling 
away to her cave in the forest. Ever since 
that time the Dog loves man better than he 
does any of the animals of the forest, and serves 
him against all his enemies; and if the Leopard 
comes to steal from the village, the Dog will 
call for the man to drive him away. 



[ 40 ] 


“Mfwa! Mfwa!” said Mpoko’s dog, looking 
up into Ills master’s face and then grinning at 
the leopard. And Mpoko and Nkunda were 
certain that he had understood every word of 
the story that the Alo Man had told. 


\ 


CHAPTER IV 


THE CAT AND THE RAT 

O N the fourth night of the Alo Man’s stay, 
Nkunda was looking for her cat. She had 
been feeling a little jealous that day, because 
Mpoko and every one else gave so much atten- 
tion to the dogs. It seemed as if the cat too 
might be jealous, or perhaps the dogs were so 
proud of themselves that they wanted the village 
to themselves, for Nkunda had not seen her pet 
since the night before. 

Even the baby, rolling about in the doorway, 
had missed his playmate, and he repeated 
Nkunda’s call, which sounded very like cat 
language. In the Ki-sukama dialect of the 
Bantu language the cat is called Ca-ungu, in 
the Ki-fipa dialect, Inyao, and in Isi-nyixa 
talk it is Unyawu; but all these names sound 
like the little “miaou ” that the cat makes when 
she has something to show you, and this was 



[ 42 ] 


the sound that came out of the darkness in 
answer to Nkunda’s call. 

The sound came from the direction of the 
granary. This was a building planned very 
carefully for its special purpose. It was a 
large round basket-work structure, plastered 
with mud and built on a floor raised above the 
ground on short legs of forked branches. This 
floor or platform was made in such a way as to 
keep out rats. Nevertheless, now and then one 
would make an entrance, and as Nkunda came 
up to the platform the cat leaped down, carrying 
in her mouth a large rat. It was as if she wished 
to prove that she could take care of herself, 
whether any one else remembered her or not. 

Nkunda called her mother and showed her 
what the cat had brought, and a little crowd 
gathered about the granary. Purring proudly, 
the cat led the way to a hole where the wall 
had crumbled from dampness or had been 
gnawed away, and it was quite large enough for 


a rat to get in. If the cat had not been so 
prompt in disposing of the thief, he and his 
family might have gone to housekeeping in 
there; but as it was, little harm had been done. 

“ The hole must be stopped up,” said Nkunda’s 
mother. “The rain might get in and all the 
grain would mold, through a hole like that.” 

“And we must have a rat hunt,” said Mpoko, 
coming up with his special friend Nkula to look 
at the hole. “But we must make some new 
traps and get our bows and arrows in order 
first. There will be no rats about when we 
have finished with them!” 

“That is all very well,” said Nkunda, strok- 
ing her cat; “but your trap did not catch this 
rat and my cat did.” 

The rat hunt took place, however. All the 
boys in the village came to it, and it was a 
most exciting time. The farm rat of Equatorial 
Africa is a rather pretty little brown animal 
with black stripes, and the boys do their hunting 
with traps and their small bows and arrows. 
The traps are made of basket-work and are cone- 
shaped. They are set in a group in the middle 
of a large grassy space where there is reason to 
suppose the rats are, and then the boys take 
their stand in a circle round the edge of this 


[ 44 ] 


ground and begin to walk toward the center, 
kicking up the grass as they go, and shouting. 
The rats scamper toward the center, where 
they are likely to run into the traps; but they 
have a habit of starting to run and then stopping 
for a moment to look about, and this gives the 
boys a chance to shoot them down with their 
small, sharp arrows. Between the traps and 
the shooting a considerable number of rats 
rewarded the hunters, and meanwhile the hole 
in the granary was well patched up with wattle 
and mud. 

Rats find a great deal that they like in an 
African village, and there are usually plenty of 
them to be hunted by both cats and boys. The 
people do not raise wheat, but they have other 
things that they eat as we eat bread. Mi] let, 
barley, and maize or “mealies” are cultivated 
on the farms and ground on stone slabs. The 
meal is made into mush or into flat cakes baked 
before the fire like hoecake. 



[ 45 ] 


The commonest substitute for bread is manioc 
or cassava, which was brought from South 
America about four hundred years ago by 
Portuguese explorers. The jungle people call 
it madioka. The making of manioc flour is 
quite a long and troublesome piece of work. 
Nine months after planting* the bulblike roots 
are pulled up and are soaked for a few days in 
pools or streams. The fresh root is poisonous, 
and the soaking takes out the poison. After 
this, the roots are peeled, cut in pieces, and dried 
in the sun on small platforms or on stones. 
When they are quite dry, they are laid on shelves 
over the fire until they are brittle enough to be 
pounded and sifted and made into flour. 

Another way of using manioc is to make 
kwanga, or native bread. For this, the root 
is soaked as for making flour, but instead of 
then being dried, it is kneaded to remove all 
lumps until it is a kind of dough that can be 
shaped into rolls or round balls. After being 
moulded into shape, the rolls are wrapped in 
large, smooth leaves and steamed until they are 
cooked. 

The taste of manioc prepared in this way is 
like that of tapioca. In fact, the starch washed 
out of cassava roots, and dried and packed, is 


[ 46 ] 


the tapioca found in grocery stores. The fresh 
tapioca that is eaten in a cassava country is, 
however, very much better than what is sold in 
stores. 

Kwanga is sold in markets at the rate of a 
shilling for fifty pounds, and four pounds will 
last a man a day. When the men of the village 
went on a trading journey, or into the forest to 
gather palm nuts or to cut wood, they always 
took with them a supply of kwanga. The 
women had been busy making some that very 
day, for there was to be an expedition down 
the river which would start the following morn- 
ing. This was why the rat, in his corner of the 
granary, had been left to nibble and to gnaw 
undisturbed. 

While the cat enjoyed her well-earned supper, 
Nkunda sidled up to the Alo Man. She had 
been thinking that perhaps it was as important 
to keep the rats out of the grain as to keep the 
leopards away from the goat pen. 

“Is there a story about the cat?” she asked. 
“She knew that the rat was stealing our grain 
when no one else did.” 

“There is certainly a story about her,” said 
the Alo Man. Then he told the story which 
explains why the Cat and the Rat are enemies. 


[ 47 ] 


I often think [said the Alo Man] of the time, 
very long ago, when the Cat and the Rat were 
friends and lived together on an island. It w as 
so long ago that they have both forgotten it, 
but they led a very happy life. There were 
birds in the trees for the Cat to eat, and there 
were nuts and manioc roots for the Rat to eat. 

Rut nobody was ever so happy as not to want 
something more. One day the Rat said, “I 
am tired of living on this island. Let us go and 
find a village to live in. There you can have 
food without catching birds, and I can have 
food without digging in the ground.” 

“That will be delightful,” said the Cat. 
“But how are we to cross this great water?” 

“Nothing is more easy,” said the Rat. “We 
will carve a boat from the root of a manioc.” 

Then the Cat and the Rat dug up a large 
manioc root and began making it into a boat. 

The Rat gnawed and gnawed and gnawed 
with his sharp teeth, until he had made a hollow 
large enough to hold the two friends. While 
he was busy at this, the Cat scratched and 
scratched and scratched, to make the outside of 
the boat smooth and to scrape off all the earth 
that clung to the great root. 


[ 48 ] 


["“Look! look!” cried Nkunda, laughing, for 
her cat was standing on two legs, scratching at 
a tree, just as if she wanted to show what cat- 
claws can do.] 

Then the Cat and the Rat [went on the Alo 
Man] made two little paddles and started out 
in their boat. 

It was much farther across the great water 
than it had looked from their island. Also 
they had forgotten to put any food into the 
boat. Presently the Cat began to say “Caungu ! 
Caungu!” which means “I am hungry! I am 
hungry!” 

And the Rat said “Quee! Quee!” which means 
in his language “I am hungry! I am hungry!” 

Rut that did not do any good. They grew 
hungrier and hungrier. At last the Cat said 
“Caungu! Caungu!” very faintly, and curled 
herself up to sleep. And the Rat said “ Quee! 
Quee!” very faintly, and curled himself up also, 
at the other end of the boat. 

[When the Alo Man made the Cat and Rat 
noises, the listeners made them too, and there 
was a great deal of laughing. Nkunda’s own 
cat was cuddled up in the little girl’s arms, her 
yellow eyes shining like two little moons, and 


[ 49 ] 


she seemed to know that this was her very own 
story.] 

But while the Cat slept, the Rat stayed awake 
and thought. Suddenly he remembered that 
the boat itself was made of manioc. He had 
eaten so much while he was gnawing out the 
hollow that he had not wanted any more for 
some time, but now he said, “Good! I will eat 
a little more and make the hollow deeper.” 

So he began — nibble, nibble, nibble! 

“What is that noise?” exclaimed the Cat, 
waking at the sound. 

But the Rat had shut his eyes and made him- 
self as if he were fast asleep. 

“I must have been dreaming,” said the Cat, 
and she laid her head down on her paws and 
went to sleep again. 

The Rat began again — nibble, nibble, nibble ! 

“What is that noise?” cried the Cat, waking 
up. 

But the Rat made himself seem to be fast 
asleep. 


“What strange dreams I have,” said the Cat, 
as she curled herself up and went to sleep again. 

Once more the Rat began to nibble very fast, 
and the noise awoke the Cat. 

“What is that noise?” asked the Cat. 

But the Rat made believe to be sound asleep. 

“My dreams are certainly very troublesome,” 
said the Cat, as she curled herself up and went 
to sleep once more with her paw folded over her 
eyes. 

Then the Rat began nibbling again, and this 
time he gnawed a hole right through the bottom 
of the boat, and the water began to come in. 

“What is this?” cried the Cat, jumping up 
quickly. 

“Quee, quee, quee!” squealed the Rat, perch- 
ing on one end of the boat. 

“Caungu! Caungu!” miaued the Cat, climbing 
up on the other end, for she did not like the 
water at all. 

“Quee, quee!” 

“ Caungu ! Ca-ungu-u-u ! ” 

“Quee, quee!” 

“You did this, you wicked creature!” squalled 
the Cat. 

“I was so hungry!” squeaked the Rat, and 
then the boat began to sink, and there was no 


[ 51 ] 


time for any more talk. They had to swim for 
their lives. 

“I am going to eat you,” said the Cat, glaring 
at the Rat as they swam. 

“I deserve it,” squeaked the Rat; “but don’t 
eat me now or you will be choked by the water. 
Wait until we reach the shore.” 

“I will wait,” said the Cat, “but when we 
reach the shore I will certainly eat you.” 

At last they reached the dry land. 

“Now,” said the Cat, “I will eat you.” 

“I deserve it,” said the Rat, “but I am too 
wet to be good eating now. Let me dry myself, 
while you dry your own beautiful coat. I shall 
be ready when you are.” 

They sat down and began to dry their coats. 
[Nkunda’s cat was licking her breast and her 
coal-black paws and the fur of her striped and 
mottled gray back with all the care in the world.] 
And the Cat [went on the Alo Man] was so 
interested in making her beautiful coat quite 
smooth and glossy that she did not see that the 
Rat was busily digging a hole in the earth behind 
her. 

“Are you ready?” asked the Cat at last, 
when every part of her coat was dry and glossy 
and smooth. 


[ 52 ] 


“Certainly,” said the Rat, and he disappeared 
into the hole. 

“You rascal!” cried the Cat, for the hole was 
only just big enough for the Rat to dive into it. 

“Quee, quee!” said the Rat from the bottom 
of the hole. 

“You will never get out of that hole alive,” 
said the Cat. “I will stay here and wait for 
you, and when you come out I will eat you.” 

“What if I never come out?” said the Rat. 
“Quee, quee!” 

“Then you can stay in that hole and starve,” 
said the Cat, and she settled down in front of 
the hole with her nose on her paws and all four 
feet under her, watching for the Rat to come 
out. 

“Quee, quee!” said the Rat, in the hole, and 
he began to dig himself in deeper. 

All day long the Rat went on digging. 

All day long the Cat watched beside the hole. 

When night came, the Rat had dug down 
under a tree root and had come up on the other 
side of the tree, and he crept out of the other 


end of his tunnel and went on to the village, 
while the Cat still watched at her end. 

i 

From that day to this the Cat is never so 
fast asleep that she does not hear the gnawing 
of a Rat, and she is never tired of watching for 
the Rat to come out of a hole. And from that 
day to this the Rat knows that if there is a Cat 
in the village where he goes to steal grain, he 
will find the Cat waiting for him at one end or 
the other of his hole in the ground. 


[ 54 ] 


CHAPTER V 


THE JACKAL AND HIS TRACKS 

T HERE seemed to be no animal in the forest 
or the swamp or on the plain about which 
the Alo Man did not know a story. In the nine 
hundred thousand miles of country, more or 
less, through which the Congo and its branches 
flow, there is land suitable for almost every 
kind of wild creature known to Africa. Ele- 
phants, buffalo, wild cattle, rhinoceros, antelope, 
koodoo, eland, giraffes, pigs, and other grazing 
and browsing animals wander over the grassy 
table-lands. Hippopotami, crocodiles, and other 
water creatures live in the rivers and swamps, 
and among the beasts of prey are lions, leopards, 
hyenas, and jackals, although the jackal is not 
much to be feared. Monkeys large and small 



[ 55 ] 


are numerous in the forests, and in a part of the 
forest so old and deep that the people call it the 
Plantations of God, the gorilla is sometimes 
found. In the Alo Man’s stories, however, 
the smaller animals almost always had the best 
of it. They also had much more to say for 
themselves at night. As the old people put it, 
it is not always the biggest man whose words 
come in crowds. 

“Do you know the reason why the hyena’s 
legs are not alike?” asked the Alo Man one 
night after supper, when there was a great 
to-do out in the darkness. 

No one did, and of course every one wanted 
to hear the story of the Hyena and the Jackal. 

I often recall [began the Alo Man] the days 
when the animals could talk and the Hyena 
and the Jackal lived in the same village. One 
day they were looking up at the clouds. 

“They are very thick and white,” said the 
Jackal. “Can it be possible that they are solid 
white fat?” 

The Jackal waited until one cloud floated 
quite near the earth, and then he climbed a 
tree and sprang into the very middle of that 
cloud. 


[ 56 ] 



[ 57 ] 












[That the Jackal should climb a tree did not 
seem strange to any of the listeners when the 
Alo Man told the story; all of them had seen a 
man climb a palm tree for nuts by looping two 
ropes around the trunk and putting his feet in 
one and the other by turns, walking up the 
trunk to the very top.] 

“I was right,” said the Jackal; “it is the most 
delicious white fat.” 

Then he ate and ate, until he was so full that 
he was afraid to try to climb down the tree. 

“I am coming down!” cried the Jackal to the 
Hyena. “Catch me as I fall, or I shall be 
hurt.” 

The Hyena planted her feet firmly in the earth 
and arched her back, and when the Jackal 
jumped he landed on her back unhurt. 

“Thank you,” said he, but he was not really 
grateful at all. He was already planning to 
play a joke on the Hyena. 

“Climb up on the cloud and eat some of the 
good white fat,” said he. “It is the finest 
food I have ever eaten in my life.” 

The Hyena was glad to hear that the Jackal 
had left some for her, and she climbed the tree 
and jumped out upon the cloud and began to 
eat. She ate and ate, as the Jackal had done, 


[ 58 ] 


until she was so full that she did not dare to 
try to climb down the tree. 

4 1 am coming down! Catch me!” she called 
to the Jackal, and he planted his four feet firmly 
in the ground and stood under the cloud. But 
as she jumped he stepped back, and down came 
the Hyena on her hind legs. So far and so hard 
did she fall that her hind legs were driven into 
her body, and have ever since been shorter than 
her fore legs, as you may see to this day. 

But the Jackal’s turn came in time, for no 
dog is top dog in every fight. This is what 
happened to him. 

One day the sun came down into the forest 
and sat down on the soft green earth, to rest. 
The Jackal came by and saw the sun resting 
there, and his eyes were dazzled so that he 
thought it was a goat. Now a goat would make 
him a fine dinner, so he pounced upon it quickly 
and put it in a sack and threw the sack over his 
shoulders to carry home. 

He had not traveled far when the sun began 
to burn his shoulders. 

“Oh! oh! oh!” cried the Jackal, trying to 
throw the sun off his shoulders. “Get down! 
get down!” 

But the sun would not get down until he was 


[ 59 ] 


quite ready, and the Jackal’s back was scorched 
in a long black stripe which he wears to this 
day. 

When the Hyena saw the long black stripe 
she howled with delight, and ever since then, 
when the Hyena and the Jackal meet and the 
Hyena sees the stripe on the Jackal’s back, the 
Hyena laughs and the Jackal yelps, just as you 
hear them doing now [concluded the Alo Man]. 

The Hyena and the Jackal were certainly 
making an uncommon racket even for them, 
and then, quite suddenly, they stopped. 

“The Jackal must have been at his old tricks 
again,” said the Alo Man. “It sounds as if he 
still remembered what he did in the time of the 
great drought.” 

“Tell about it,” begged the girls. 

“Yes, tell about it; that is a good story,” said 
Mpoko. He had heard it before. 

In this forest region the air was so hot and 
moist that such a thing as a drought was almost 
unknown, but the people all knew what it was 
like. Here the hot air took up the moisture 
from the swamps and rivers, and the sun could 
hardly get through the thick leaves of the 
forest. But out on the plains, where there were 


[ 60 ] 


few trees, the sun beat down with a fierce heat 
and the winds blew with a dry, hot fury that 
made every water pool precious to man and 
beast for miles around. Rivers that were deep 
and swift in the rainy season dried up com- 
pletely in the dry season, and there were no 
villages on the wide table-lands, because there 
was no water there for months at a time. A 
few people wandered about who lived as they 
could by hunting, and the river villages, in 
which families lived in houses and kept goats, 
fowls, and cattle, had nothing to do with these 
wild savages. 

It was a drought such as the people of the 
plains knew in the dry season that the Alo Man 
meant when he began to tell the story of the 
Jackal and the Drought. 

I often remember [he said] the very dry 
time in the land when many animals died of 
thirst. It was in the days when the animals 
lived in villages and talked one with another, 
and when the drought was over the Lion called 
the animals together and said that some plan 
must be found to keep this from ever happening 
again. 

The Ape said that they might go to some 


[ 61 ] 


country where there were no droughts, but the 
Tortoise said that he would never live to com- 
plete such a long journey. 

“Let us sleep through the next dry season,” 
said the Snake. 

“That would never suit me,” said the Hare. 

At last, after a great deal of discussion, the 
Jackal and the Hyena suggested that they 
might all join in digging a great pool to hold 
water through the next dry season. 

This seemed a wise plan, and on the very next 
day the animals came to dig the hole. 

They agreed to take turns. It was settled 
that as the Hyena and the Jackal had made the 
plan, the Hyena should be first and the Jackal 
last; but when the Jackal’s turn came he was 
nowhere to be found. The pool was almost 
finished, and the others decided to go on and 
get it done without him. Soon the rain began 
to fall, and filled it full of pure, sweet water. 
Then a rule was made that no one except those 
who had helped to dig the pool should be allowed 
to drink there. 

The Jackal was hiding in the bushes and 
heard all that was said, and he came very early 
the next morning and drank all that he wanted. 
Every morning, before any one else was about 


[ 62 ] 


he did this, and after a while he grew bolder 
and took a swim in the pool, so that the water 
was muddy when the others came to drink. 

“Who did this?” asked the Lion. 

“Who did this?” asked the Leopard. 

“Who did this?” asked all the other animals 
when they came to drink. 

But no one knew. 

“I will tell you what we can do,” said the 
Tortoise. “Cover my shell with beeswax to 
make it sticky, and I will watch all night by the 
pool and catch the rascal.” 

So the shell of the Tortoise was covered with 
a thick coat of sticky wax, and he took his place 
beside the pool to watch for trespassers. He 
drew his head and his tail and his feet inside his 
shell, so that he looked like a flat brown stone. 
From time to time he would stick his head out 
cautiously to see if any one was coming. After 
waiting all night long, he heard a noise in the 
bushes. He crept down to the very edge of the 


water, drew his head and feet into his shell, and 
kept as still as a stone. 

Then the Jackal came sneaking down to the 
pool, looking from side to side to make sure that 
no one was set to guard it. 

“What a very convenient stepping-stone,” he 
said, and he placed his two fore feet upon the 
Tortoise’s shell and bent down to drink. No 
sooner had he done this than he discovered, to 
his great surprise and terror, that his feet were 
stuck fast. 

“Ow! Ow! Let me go! This is a mean 
trick!” howled the Jackal. 

“You are not the only one who knows how 
to play tricks,” said the Tortoise, and he began 
to move away. 

“Yah! Yah! Let me go! ” yelled the Jackal. 
“If you don’t let me go, I will kick your shell 
to pieces with my hind feet.” 

“You may do just as you please about that,” 
said the Tortoise, moving on away from the 
pool. 

The Jackal kicked as hard as he could at the 
Tortoise with his hind feet, and first one and then 
the other stuck fast to the shell. 

“Wow! Wow! Let me go!” squalled the 
Jackal. “ If you don’t let me go, I will bite you 
in two!” 


[ 64 ] 


“Try it and see what happens,” said the 
Tortoise quietly, moving on along the path. 

The Jackal bit the shell as hard as he could, 
and his jaws stuck to it fast. He was dragged 
along, until, after some time, the Tortoise arrived 
at the Lion’s house and told how he had caught 
the thieving Jackal. 

All the animals, when they heard the news, 
gathered to see the Jackal in his miserable 
captivity, but not one of them had any pity for 
him. Every one said that he ought to die for 
his dishonesty and his mischief-making. 

“You may live until tomorrow,” said the 
Lion, “and we will allow you this favor: you 
may choose the way you will die.” 

“ Thank you,” said the Jackal, meekly. Then 
he began to think whether there was not some 
plan by which he might escape even now. 

All the animals came to see the Jackal exe- 
cuted, and the Hyena was made the executioner. 

“Have you made up your mind in what way 
you wish to be killed?” asked the Lion. 

“ I once saw a monkey kill a rat,” said the 
Jackal, “ by swinging it round by the tail and 
dashing it against a tree. I think I should 
prefer to be killed in that way.” 

“Very well,” said the Lion, “the Hyena will 


[ 65 ] 


take you by the tail and swing you round and 
round and dash you against a tree.” 

“Thank you,” said the Jackal, meekly. “If 
I might be so free as to make a suggestion, 
permit me to say that the other animals might 
be safer if they sat as far away as possible. 
Otherwise, when the Hyena lets go of me, I 
might hit one of them instead of the tree, and 
that would be very unfortunate.” 

The animals thought that this was a good 
suggestion, and went as far away as they could 
go without being out of sight of the execution. 

Now the Jackal had saved some fat from the 
meat they gave him for his dinner, and he had 
greased his tail all the way to the tip, so that it 
was as slippery as a lump of butter. 

The Hyena grasped the Jackal firmly by the 
tail and began to swing him round his head 
with all his might, but the harder he swung the 
more quickly the tail slipped out of his hand. 
In spite of all he could do, the Hyena could not 
keep hold of the slippery tail, and before he 
knew what had happened, the Jackal had landed 
on the ground and was running away through 
the forest for dear life. As for the Hyena, he 
lost his grip so suddenly that he was upset 
entirely, and sat down hard against a tree. 


[ 66 ] 


And as for the other animals, they were so sur- 
prised that not one of them started to run after 
the Jackal until he was out of sight. 

The Jackal never came back to disturb the 
waters of the pool. A long time after every one 
who had helped to build it was dead, it was 
still known to all the animals of the forest, and 
it never was dry even in the hottest weather. 
But the Tortoises never forgot how the Jackal 
came to steal the water from the pool, and if 
you were to go there now you would probably 
find one of them on the bank, watching to see 
that no one troubles the waters. 

“Did you find that one there?” asked Mpoko. 

“Yes,” said the Alo Man, rubbing the last 
bit of red clay into some curious marks on the 
shell of the little tortoise he had been decorating. 
“I found him by a pool where all the animals 
drink, looking exactly like a little brown stone 
in the mud.” 


[ 67 ] 


CHAPTER VI 


WHY THE CANOE UPSET 

T HE mist of the river still hung in the air 
in the gray morning light. Early as it 
was, the men of the village were astir, making 
ready for their expedition. Mpoko and Nkula, 
rubbing their eyes, made a hasty breakfast and 
scampered down to the river bank with their 
fishing tackle. 

The boys had two new scoop nets, which 
Nkunda had helped to make. Like all the 
children of the village, they could do all sorts of 
things with fiber string, and could even make 
the string. Hibiscus fiber, braided palm leaves, 
thongs, and bark, all were used for string, thread, 
or cord as each happened to be wanted. Strands 
of fiber were made into string by rolling with 
the hand, on the thigh. Mpoko and Nkunda 
and Nkula, and even their younger playmates, 
could make any number of cat’s cradles. One 
looked like a locust, another like a grass hut with 
four sides and a pointed top; and another was 
called “The Bed.” The Alo Man had taught 
them one named for the great zigzag valley of 
the Zambezi — the Batoka Gorge, below the 
Victoria Falls, which are three times as high as 


[ 68 ] 


Niagara. The Alo Man could also make the 
Moon figure, the Moon darkened, the Fighting 
Lions and the Parrot Cage; and the boys knew 
figures called the Fish Trap, the Pit, and the 
Calabash Net. 

Mpoko knew exactly how he should go about 
his fishing, although he had never fished in the 
part of the river where he and Nkula were 
going that morning. He was always the leader 
in their sports, and as they squatted on the end 
of a canoe waiting for the men to come, he 
explained his plan all over again. They would 
fish in two ways. First, they would look for a 
pool or backwater where the current was not 
as strong as it was in mid-channel. In the 
water, but near the bank, they would build 
little lattice-work fences, about eighteen inches 
apart. Then they would take the larger of their 
nets and find some rocks on which to stand while 
they dipped the net into the water with the 
mouth upstream. Fish swimming downstream 
would swim into the net and be caught. Then 
the boys would lift the net out and lay the fish 
on the rocks to dry. There were said to be 
plenty of little fish something like whitebait in 
that part of the river, and if they had good 
luck, there would be fresh fish for supper. 




[ 69 ] 


When they were tired of this way of fishing, 
they would take the smaller nets and go back 
to the pool where they had built their fences, 
and here they might find some small fish that 
had come in between the fences and could not 
find their way out. The small nets would 
scoop up these little fish quite easily. 

Mpoko knew as well as any one that it is not 
very wise to count your fish while they are still 
in the river, but he could not help making a 
guess at the number they might get in a whole 
day’s fishing. The men heard him and grinned 
as they started to push off the canoes. 

The boats were heavy, but they rode well in 
the water. They were worked by means of 
paddles, and each was made of a single tree 
trunk hollowed out. The people of this thatch- 
roofed village had no knowledge of carpenter 
work. Whatever they made of wood was cut 
out of the solid block with their adzes. In this 
way they would chisel out a log until a good- 
sized hollow had been formed; then hot stones 
were placed in it to burn out a deeper hole. 
When the stones cooled, they were heated again 
to be put back after the charred wood was 
scraped away ; this was done over and over, until 
the canoe was deep enough to be seaworthy. 


[ 70 ] 


Sometimes the ends were carved to look like 
the head of some animal. The paddles also were 
sometimes decorated with chip-carving. The 
African dugout is not so graceful as the birch 
canoe, but it has some advantages of its own. 
The Congo is a peculiar river. 

One reason why so much of Africa is still wild 
country, some of it not even explored, is that 
there are so many falls in the rivers. Boats can- 
not go up from the sea to the interior, unless 
they are light enough to be carried round the 
falls. And boats that are small enough for this 
are too small to be of much use in carrying goods 
for trading or large parties of settlers. Another 
reason is that so much of the country is either 
dense jungle or waterless plain. Almost the 
only way to carry goods into the Upper Congo 
country is by porters, who have to follow narrow 
trails, in single file. 



[ 71 ] 



Where such a trail crosses a river too deep 
to ford, — and in flood time African rivers are 
likely to be deep, — of course there must be a 
bridge. The wild people are clever at making 
woven bridges. To be sure, these bridges are 
not wide enough for horses or wagons, but there 
are no horses or wagons to go over them, so that 
makes no difference. Travelers pay something 
for the privilege of using such a bridge, while 
the men of the country near by keep it in 
order. It was to repair a bridge that the men 
of Mpoko’s village were going downstream now. 

The canoes shot swiftly down with the current. 
The two boys, with their keen black eyes, saw 
all sorts of interesting things by the way. Once 
they disturbed a hippopotamus having one of 
his daily baths. His great mouth looked as if 
he could swallow them whole, but he was much 
more scared than they were. Once the strange, 
whiskered, black and white face of a colobus 
monkey peered out of a tree top. Then a 
crowned crane, his feathered crest very erect, 
rose out of the swamp and flapped away, his 
long legs trailing behind him. Even as early 
as this the sun was blazing hot as a furnace 
and the mist had burned quite away. 

There was no need to paddle; the men had 


[ 72 ] 


all they could do to steer the canoes as they 
rode on the strong current. At last they shot 
round a bend of the river and into the shadow 
of the bridge and scrambled ashore. 

The bridge was made of saplings firmly lashed 
together and had a handrail of rattan. It hung 
from the great trees on the two sides of the 
river, high above even the reach of a flood. A 
log bridge might have been swept away by the 
caving of the banks in flood time, and the people 
could not possibly have built a stone bridge or 
an iron one. 

When the traders were coming back from 
their last journey, they had noticed that the 
supports of the bridge were rather shaky, and 
as they meant to send a much larger caravan 
over it before long, they wanted to make sure 
that all was in order. 



[ 73 ] 


Over narrow streams, bridges are sometimes 
made of a bundle of slim tree trunks lashed 
together and resting on the banks, but here the 
river was too wide for that. Farther down, 
the banks of the Lower Congo are steep hills, a 
mile and a quarter apart, and through this 
funnel-like channel the Upper Congo and its 
tributary streams pour their waters into a tre- 
mendous whirlpool known as the Devil’s Cook 
Pot. None of the men of the village had ever 
seen this awful place, but they had heard of it, 
and many were the tales told of the dangers of 
the unknown waters toward which their river 
flowed through the wilderness. 

While the men worked at the lashings of the 
timbers and the closer knotting of the ropes, the 
boys went about their fishing. They did not 
have much trouble in finding a suitable shallow 
place for their little wicker fences, but when 
they came to fish with the scoop net, Mpoko 
discovered that he had not reckoned on the 
strength of the stream. His best net was 
whirled away out of his hand before he had used 
it twice. Thereafter the boys had to take turns, 
one using the remaining large net while the 
other fished in the shallows. 

Their misfortunes did not end there. They 


[ 74 ] 


had just gathered all their little fishes into a 
woven basket, when Nkula darted back from 
the river with a startled shout, and Mpoko 
turned just in time to see net, fish, and all 
vanish into the long, wicked jaws of a crocodile. 

The boys were in luck, as one of the men told 
them, not to have gone into the crocodile’s 
stomach themselves. All the same, they felt 
very cheap to be going home with only a few 
mean little fish for the whole day’s work. 

The bridge had now been put in order, and 
as the party took boat again for home, several 
crocodile stories were told. Every one of the 
men had had some experience with the Terror 
of the Waters. They all knew how he would 
lie for hours in the mud with only his nose in 
sight, looking exactly like a fallen log, and how 
his hoarse call could sometimes be heard in the 
swamp through the whole night. The boys felt 
secretly glad to be on the way home in a solid, 
well-balanced log canoe. 

It was slower work returning than it had been 
coming down the river, and the paddles worked 
steadily. When they had traveled some dis- 
tance, a hunter from another village hailed them 
from the trail. He had a wild pig that he did 
not wish to carry home and after a little bargain- 


[ 75 ] 


in g the bridge menders paid for it and it was 
tumbled into the canoe. As one of the men 
said slyly, roast pork for supper would do very 
well, seeing that the boys had not caught enough 
fish to make a showing! 

At home, in the village, the women had come 
in and were at work as usual preparing supper. 
A little before sunset, far down the river, the 
voices of men singing came over the water, and 
as the song grew louder they could make out 
something about roast pig for supper. 

“They must have killed something,” said 
Nkunda. 

“The boys have had bad luck with their 
fishing,” said the Alo Man, whose keen ears had 
caught the little jeering note in the song. 

In another minute the canoes would come in 
sight round the bend in the river, when — all 
at once — there was a great splash and a chorus 
of yells, and the song broke off in the middle of 
a line. When the canoes presently appeared, 
the men were no longer singing; they were 
paddling with all their might, and they looked 
rather scared and crestfallen. 

Mpoko and Nkula, however, did not look 
crestfallen. They grinned as only small African 
boys can grin, as they hopped out of the canoe 


♦ 



wm 


szhzm 





[ 77 ] 



and scampered for the huts with their few but 
precious fish. 

“Where is that roast pork we were going to 
have for supper?” asked the Alo Man, coming 
to meet the party. 

“We were nearly home when a crocodile rose 
up almost under the canoe, snapped at the pig, 
tipped us oyer, and went off with the meat,” 
growled one of the men. 

Thus, after all, there would not have been 
nearly so good a supper that night if the boys 
had not gone fishing. 

Crocodile stories were naturally in order after 
supper, and the Alo Man, when his turn came, 
told the story of the Rabbit and the Crocodile. 


I always like to tell of the time, long and long 
ago, when the creatures lived in towns like 
people, and had their own farms. 

The Crocodile had a farm by the river, and 



[ 78 ] 


he used to come up on land when he liked. 
One day, as he lay sunning himself on his farm, 
the Rabbit saw him. 

“How do you do, Uncle?” said the Rabbit, 
edging up toward him. “You seem to be taking 
life easy. All you have to do is to sleep, and 
eat, and bathe, and enjoy yourself.” 

“Let me alone,” grunted the Crocodile, who 
was sleepy. And he shut his eyes. 

Close to the Crocodile’s nose there grew a nice 
juicy bunch of young plantains. 

“How good those leaves do look!” thought 
the Rabbit. “And there they grow and flourish 
under the very nose of a creature who never 
eats them. I wonder if I could not get just one 
good bite, and then run?” 

The Rabbit crept up closer and closer, but 
just as he was going to nibble at the leaves, the 
Crocodile woke up and yelled at him. 

“Get away from here, you little thief!” he 
roared, and he snapped so savagely with his 
sharp, white, pointed teeth that the Rabbit ran 
faster than he had ever thought he possibly could 
run, and never stopped until he reached home. 

He told his wife and children about the selfish 
old Crocodile, who was so full of dinner that he 
could not keep awake and who would not let a 


[ 79 ] 


hungry little Rabbit nibble the leaves that he 
did not want himself. When the little Rabbits 
heard why they had no supper that night, they 
had a great deal to say about the Crocodile. 

“That is all very well,” said the Rabbit, 
“but when a chicken is the judge, the cockroach 
gets no justice. We cannot depend on any one 
else to punish the Crocodile; we must do it 
ourselves. Come all of you and get dry grass 
and leaves, and we will go and lay them in a 
circle around the Crocodile while he is asleep, 
and then we will set them on fire. We’ll give 
him a fine scare.” 

Then all the Rabbits wriggled with joy and 
kicked up their heels at the thought of what 
was going to happen, and they gathered many 
armfuls of grass and leaves and laid them in 
a circle round the Crocodile. The fire was 
kindled, and it began to blaze up and smoke. 
The Rabbits hid themselves in the bushes and 
kept as still as stones. 

Crackle — crackle — snap-snap-snap ! went 
the fire, but the Crocodile did not wake up. 

Snap! snap! snap! went the burning twigs, 
but the Crocodile did not wake up. 

The smoke began to get thicker and blacker, 
until at last they could not see the Crocodile, 


[ 80 ] 


but they heard him cough in his sleep. Then 
he turned over, and coughed again. 

“Haugh! Haugh! What’s the matter here? 
I can’t breathe!” grunted the Crocodile. 

Then he choked, and coughed, and opened 
his mouth so wide that a live coal flew into it. 
At that he woke up completely. He made a 
rush to get away from the fire, but found it in 
front of him. He turned round, and saw it 
still in front of him, while at the same time it 
was behind him scorching the end of his tail. 
Then he made one big jump and got out of the 
circle of fire, and his hide was so thick that he 
was hardly burned at all, but he was badly 
scared and very angry. When he heard all 
the squealing and laughter of the Rabbits in the 
bushes, he was so angry he could hardly speak. 

“Don’t you ever dare to come near the river 
again!” he shouted, and off he waddled as fast 
as he could go, to get into the cool water and put 
mud on his burned places. 

“Don’t you ever dare to come up here on the 
land again!” squealed the Rabbits, and they 


set about gathering the plantains and other 
vegetables on the Crocodile’s farm where the 
fire had not come. 

And from that day to this the Rabbits never 
go near the river if they can help it, and the 
Crocodile never goes far from the river if he can 
help it. He does not like to be reminded of the 
time when he was caught in the fire by a trick 
and the Rabbits laughed at him, for the news 
went from one tongue to another, and the 
Crocodile has never heard the last of it. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE TRAIL OF THE ELEPHANT 

T HE farms around the village were good to 
have, but the real storehouse of the people 
was the forest. The forests of the Congo form 
one of the largest tree-clad regions of the world. 
More rubber vines are found there than in any 
other place. 

Yams, plantains, and pineapples grow wild in 
the forest. Coffee now grows wild in many 
parts of Africa, although it was not till 1876 
that Scotch planters brought the first coffee 
tree to Africa, from the Edinburgh Botanical 
Gardens. Cotton grows without being culti- 
vated and is sometimes woven on native looms; 
but lately the cloth from overseas, that is sold 
in twelve-yard pieces by the traders, is much 
more popular. 

Among the things grown on the farms are 
cassava, maize, rice, peanuts, sweet potatoes, 
bananas, beans, sugar-cane, tobacco, coffee, 
according to the nature of the soil. Rubber is 
almost the only product that sells for a price 
which makes it worth while to carry it two days’ 
journey to a market. 


[ 83 ] 


Ivory is in great demand by traders, but 
when an elephant is killed the ivory belongs to 
the king of the country. He has his workmen 
and artists make it into carved and ornamented 
articles. When the king dies, all this collection 
of carved ivory is destroyed; for this reason 
carved ivory that a trader can buy is rare in 
Equatorial Africa. Much uncarved ivory is 
also hoarded. 

The people of Mpoko’s village traded rubber, 
palm oil, and sometimes raffia. They were now 
getting ready for a great journey to the trading 
station far down the river. All the river villages 
would share in this expedition, and there would 
be perhaps one hundred and fifty men in all. 
One chief might go himself, with as many men 
as were needed to carry his goods ; another would 
send a trusted man in charge of ten or fifteen 
porters; another might send his men with their 
loads in charge of a friend, and so on. So strong 
a company would be able to travel through the 
wilderness without much fear of wild beasts or 
of human enemies. 

In a great part of wild Africa, slave-raiding 
has always gone on more or less, and the forest 
paths are never really safe. Mpoko and Nkunda 
had heard their mother tell of a little sister of her 


[ 84 ] 


own who was sent to the market four miles 
away to buy a saucepan, and on the way home, 
straying from the party with whom she went, 
had been lost and never again heard of. There 
were people they knew who had been slaves 
themselves, or had lost a mother, father, or 
friend in this way. A person carried off by the 
slave trader would never be able to get home 
again or to find people who talked his own 
language. There are no maps, no letters, no 
police, no common language in these wild places. 
A great shadow is over all the land, the shadow 
of constant danger. 

All things considered, the beasts of the forest 
are less feared than human enemies. In all the 
Alo Man’s stories, the animals behaved as they 
did in the old days when the world was new and 
there was order in the land. Each tribe had 
its king; the elephant, of course, was king of 


the large animals; the largest of the eagles was 
king of the birds; a certain large fish was king 
of the fishes; and there was a king also of the 
locusts and one of the ants. 

But for all that he was the king of the largest 
animals, the Elephant did not always get the 
better of the others, as is shown in the story of 
the Elephant and the Rabbit. The Alo Man 
had been watching the boys playing at trading; 
suddenly he began to tell the story. 

The Rabbit said to the Elephant [the Alo 
Man began], “Let us go into partnership.” 

“But I am so much stronger than you,” said 
the Elephant. 

“And I am so much more nimble than you,” 
said the Rabbit. 

[The children began to laugh, for that was 
exactly how the boys had argued when they 
began to quarrel in their game. They all 
gathered about the Alo Man to hear the story, 
and soon everybody felt quite good-natured.] 

After a great deal of talk the Rabbit and the 
Elephant decided to become partners, and sell 
nuts, manioc root, and bananas. 

“I am carrying a much larger load than you 
are,” said the Elephant. 


[ 86 ] 


“But I go so much faster than you do,” said 
the Rabbit, as he skipped along under his small 
load. 

After a while they came to a river, and the 
Rabbit, who does not like to wet his feet, asked 
the Elephant to carry him across. The Ele- 
phant, however, said that he had a heavy enough 
load already, and he waded into the river. 

“Oh, very well,” said the Rabbit, cheerfully, 
and finding a shallow place he hopped from one 
rock to another until he reached the far side. 

When they came to the village, the people 
were glad to see the Rabbit, but they were afraid 
of the Elephant because he looked so cross. 

“What will you give me for my nuts?” asked 
the Rabbit. 

“We will give you these cowries,” said the 
people, and they took all his nuts. But they 
bought very little from the Elephant. 

It was the same everywhere. The Elephant 
growled and grumbled, and rocked from one side 
to the other, and had very little success, while 
the Rabbit sold all his wares at good prices. 
In the end the Rabbit had a large bag of cowries 
and the Elephant had only a little one. 

When they started home, the Elephant said: 
“It is not right for you to have the large bag 


[ 87 ] 


and for me to have the small one. If any one 
should ask you, say that the large bag is mine.” 

“Very well,” said the Rabbit. 

Soon they met some travelers, and when the 
travelers saw the two bags of cowries, they asked 
the Rabbit if the large one was his, and when he 
said it was, they laughed. After they had passed 
by the Elephant said, “ I told you to say that the 
large bag was mine.” 

“Oh, yes, so you did,” said the Rabbit. “I 
forgot.” 

The Elephant was growing more and more 
angry, and he said to himself, “What if I leave 
him to travel alone with his big bag of cowries? 
We shall see how long he will keep it.” 

At the next bend in the trail the Elephant 
turned aside into the forest. Soon he met a 
Lion, and said to him, “A Rabbit back there is 
traveling alone with a large bag of cowries.” 

“Good!” said the Lion. “I will eat that 



[ 88 ] 


Rabbit and carry off his treasure,” and away 
he bounded through the forest. 

Then the Elephant met a Buffalo, and said to 
him, “A silly little Rabbit back there has a large 
bag of cowries.” 

“That is very pleasant,” said the Buffalo. 
“I will kill that Rabbit and steal his treasure,” 
and off he trampled through the swamp. 

Soon the Elephant met a Hyena, and said to 
him, “There is a foolish young Rabbit all alone 
back there with a great bag of cowries.” 

“How .kind of you!” said the Hyena. “I 
will crack the bones of that Rabbit and get his 
treasure,” and off he trotted across the plain. 

Meanwhile the Lion and the Rabbit had 
met. 

The Lion gave a great roar and was making 
ready to spring, when the Rabbit said gayly, 
“How have you slept, Uncle? I am going to 
the great feast that the King of the Monkeys is 
giving, and I shall buy good things with some of 
these cowries. Don’t you want to come, too?” 

The Lion thought that it would be much better 
to attend this feast than to eat a few mouthfuls 
of Rabbit; so he said, “Thank you, I shall be 
proud to go with you,” and they trotted along 
together. 


[ 89 ] 


Then the Buffalo came crashing through the 
bushes with his horns lowered, but the Rabbit 
said gayly, “Have you slept well, Uncle? I am 
going to the great feast that the King of the 
Monkeys is giving, and I shall buy good things 
with some of these cowries. Don’t you want 
to join us?” 

The Buffalo thought that it would be much 
better to attend this feast than to gore the 
Rabbit; so he said, “Thank you, I shall be 
proud to go with you,” and they all went on 
together. 

Then the Hyena slunk out of the tall grass 
and showed his teeth, but the Rabbit said 
gayly, “I hope you have slept well, Uncle. 
I am going to the great feast that the King of 
the Monkeys is giving, and I shall buy good 
things with some of these cowries. Will you 
not come with us?” 

The Hyena thought that it would be much 
better to attend this feast than to pick the 
bones of a small Rabbit; so he said, “Thank 
you, I shall be proud to go with you,” and all 
four went on in company. 

When they reached the forest where the King 
of the Monkeys lived, the Rabbit asked them to 
wait while he told the King who had come to 


[ 90 ] 


his feast. He found the King of the Monkeys, 
and told the whole story and asked for help. 

When the other three animals came up, the 
King of the Monkeys welcomed them graciously, 
and said to the Lion, “The feast is ready except 
for certain small things. Will you do me the 
favor to find me a log with smooth bark? That 
is the only sort of wood that will roast the meat 
which we shall serve at this feast.” 

Off bounded the Lion to find a log with smooth 
bark. 

“And you,” he said to the Buffalo, “will you 
do me the favor of finding some young banana 
leaves that have fallen? Then we shall have 
suitable plates for the meat when it is 
cooked.” 

Off galloped the Buffalo to find some young 
leaves fallen from a banana tree. 

“And you, Uncle,” said the King to the 
Hyena, “will you do me the favor of finding a 
spring with spouting water? That is the only 
kind of water in which we can boil the vege- 
tables.” 

Off ran the Hyena to find a spring of spouting 
water. 

All night the three animals hunted and could 
not find what they had been sent to get, and in 


[ 91 ] 


the morning they came back very tired and 
humble. 

“You do not seem to care to come to my 
feast,” said the King of the Monkeys, severely. 

“I hunted all through the forest,” said the 
Lion, licking his paws. 

“I sat under banana trees all night long,” 
said the Buffalo, shivering. 

“I watched the mouth of the spring until the 
moon went down,” said the Hyena, yawning 
as if his jaws would break in two. 

“You lazy fellows, I have heard enough of 
your excuses! ” shouted the King of the Monkeys, 
and all the Monkeys, who had gathered above 
in the trees, began to throw down sticks and 
large nuts and to chatter so fiercely that the 
Lion, the Buffalo, and the Hyena started out 
of the forest at full speed and never came back. 
Then the King of the Monkeys and the little 
Rabbit laughed and laughed and laughed, until 
they were tired. 

But sometimes, even now, when the Lion, 
the Buffalo, and the Hyena meet, they discuss 
the question whether there is any such thing 
as a log with smooth bark, or a banana tree 
whose leaves fall when they are just coming out, 
or a spring with spouting waters. 


[ 92 ] 


All the listeners laughed as loud and long as 
the Rabbit and the King of the Monkeys. Then 
they began to argue the question who was 
really the king of all the animals, and from that 
they discussed who would be the headman of the 
caravan when it should start out. The Alo 
Man got up and shook the rattles on his drum. 

“They will meet some one at the end of the 
first day’s journey who will make them all run, 
— headman and porter, sick and well alike,” he 
said. 

There were various guesses, but nobody 
guessed right. 

‘ ‘ The Hill-that-goes-down-quick, ’ ’ said the 
Alo Man, holding his hand at a slope of about 
half a right angle, and there was a general shout, 
for everybody remembered the steep hill just 
beyond the bridge. Truly, as the Alo Man said, 
that would make any man run. 

In the middle of the night, when everybody 
was asleep, Mpoko awoke suddenly and sat 
straight up. At first he thought he must be 
dreaming of the Elephant and the other animals, 
for he could hear chewing and trampling and 
thrashing about in the edge of the forest. Peer- 
ing out in the moonlight, he could see big 
shadowy backs moving about near the granary, 


[ 93 ] 


and it did not take him a second to run out, 
shouting “Njoku! Njoku!” 

The Alo Man heard him and was out in a 
minute. His father heard him and snatched 
up his spear and ran out, knocking up the other 
men. Almost before the dogs could begin to 
bark, the little village was as lively as an ant-hill. 

Now the elephant, for all his size, is not a 
ferocious animal, and these elephants had come 
across that village only by accident. The three 
or four that were browsing about in the hope 
of finding something good were more surprised 
by the people than the people had been by them. 
In no very great time they went off, splashing 
and trampling and trumpeting through the 
forest. They left the maize field, however, in 
bad shape, and some of the huts were in worse 
shape still, for the elephants had gone right 
through them. When the timbers and thatch 



[ 94 ] 


pricked the big creatures, they were more than 
ever willing to go away from that place at once. 

The hunters of the village had no mind to 
lose this chance. Waiting only to provide them- 
selves with food, they set off on the trail, and 
managed during the next day to head the ele- 
phants round toward a pit they knew of which 
made a most effective elephant trap. Here 
they caught two large elephants with splendid 
tusks, and they came home in triumph with 
news of meat enough to provide a feast for the 
whole village, and a store of ivory for the king 
which was worth many brass rods. 


[ 95 ] 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE CUSTOMS OF THE ANTS 

T HE following days were busy indeed in the 
village. There were so many things to 
see and to do that it was hard for any boy or 
girl to keep up with the times. 

If one stayed to watch the women preparing 
the meat of the elephant for the great feast, 
one would miss the expedition into the forest 
to cut poles for new houses, and would not see 
the putting up of the framework and the con- 
struction of the roof. Nkunda spent some time 
helping to make the mud to plaster the walls of 
her mother’s house, and any child who ever 
dabbled in mud and water with the feet knows 
how pleasant that is. Other children collected 
split bamboos and wet bark rope, and grass for 
thatching. 



[ 96 ] 


The house Mpoko and Nkunda saw going up 
was built without the use of nails or hammers or 
saws, planes, screws or chisels, foot rule or 
figures. First, a row of strong poles was 
planted along the line of the house wall and as 
high as the eaves would be — a little less than 
five feet. The mud floor inside was tramped 
down hard, and was a little higher than the level 
of the ground outside. The three forked posts 
supporting the ridgepole were about seven feet 
high. 

Of course there were children who did not 
know the old riddle about the ridgepole posts. 
When Mpoko told them that there were three 
men carrying a dead one in their teeth over 
yonder, they ran very fast to the place at which 
he pointed. All that they saw, however, was 
three “king posts” just set up, with the ridge- 
pole lying across them; and then they remem- 
bered that the forks of such a post are called 
meno, which means teeth. Then they went and 
found other children who had not heard the riddle 
and brought them to see; and before the roof 
was on, the joke had been told four or five 
times. 

It was not hard to build little huts in the 
same way the men were putting up the big ones, 


[ 97 ] 


and when a group of children had just finished 
one Nkunda came by from the hen house. 

“I have a house built without any door,” 
said she. “The person who lives in it will 
come out when he is hungry.” 

Nobody could guess that riddle until Nkunda 
opened her little brown hand and showed them 
a new-laid egg. 

“I know a riddle you have not heard,” said 
Nkula. “My father’s fowls laid their eggs 
under the leaves.” 

None of them had heard that one, but Nkunda 
happened to remember seeing Nkula munch- 
ing peanuts a few minutes before and called 
out triumphantly, “Nguba!” Of course, the 
peanut, or “goober,” hides its fruit under its 
leaves. 

“The bird with its head cut off* eats up all 



[ 98 ] 


the food,” said their mother. The answer to 
that was easy when one saw the women grinding 
flour for bread. The stone on which grain, 
cassava, and plantains are pounded was the 
headless bird. 

Then the Alo Man told them one that was new 
to them all. 

“I went to a strange town and they gave me 
one-legged fowls to eat.” The answer was 
“Mushrooms.” Another new riddle was this: 
“A small stick may have many leaves and lose 
them all in a day.” The stick was a market, 
and the leaves were the people. 

With laughter and joking and singing, all the 
work went on, and before long the men were 
finishing the house walls. They bound split 
bamboo crosswise of the posts with wet bark 
rope, which shrinks as it dries and will last for 
years. The women plastered the wall inside 
and out with the mud which they had made at 
the nearest ant-hill by puddling earth and 
water with their feet. This mud was squeezed 
between the bamboos, and when it was dry, 
more was put on, until the walls were quite 
rain-proof. 

When the walls were dry the frame of the roof, 
which had been made separately, was set on top, 


[ 99 ] 


and then the grass thatching was tied on in 
bundles, the upper row overlapping the lower 
as wooden shingles do. The rafters of the roof 
were the midribs of the raffia leaf. The house 
was divided within into the side for sleep and 
the side for fire. 

In chilly weather a wood fire smoldered inside 
each hut, so that the walls and inside of the roof 
became black and shining with soot. The 
houses were used only to sleep in, to sit in on 
rainy days, and to hold various stores which 
must be kept dry; all the cooking, eating, and 
general work of the family were done outside. 
Moreover, a whole family did not live in a single 
house. Each grown person had a separate 
hut, the children usually staying with their 
mothers. 

There was almost no furniture except that 
some houses had a mud platform with a grass 
bed on it. When the headman of the village 
presided on any formal occasion, he sat on a low 
stool cut out of a solid block of wood. The rest 
of the people sat on their heels and were per- 
fectly comfortable, for they had always sat in 
that position. Food was served in wooden 
platters and calabashes, without tables. 
Baskets and jars served to hold things, and 


[ 100 ] 


there were no stoves, cupboards, bureaus, wash- 
stands, desks, sofas, or sideboards. The people 
made what they needed and wanted, and spent 
no time taking care of anything they did not 
want. 

The village was fairly clean, for the dogs, 
fowls, and goats and the wild birds and animals 
ate up a great deal of garbage. If rubbish ac- 
cumulated, it was carried off into the forest at 
certain times. There was always enough to 
eat of one kind of food or another, and enough 
to trade, for most of the things really needed 
could always be found in the great storehouse 
of the wilderness. If there had never been 
anything to be afraid of, the people would have 
lived comfortably year in and year out. But 
the shadow of danger was always hanging over 
them. 

The men of the village had had a great deal 
of talk with the Alo Man about this fear of 
attack, and he was able to tell them several 
things about the ways of defending a country 
and of avoiding trouble, which he had seen in 
his travels. He had been among many different 
tribes, and some of the customs of which he told 
seemed very strange. 

For instance, the Alo Man said that the 


[ 101 ] 


Wa-nkonda built their huts round, with the 
walls sloping out from the bottom like a basket, 
and the spaces between the bamboos were not 
plastered with mud but filled in with round bricks 
of white clay. This seemed to Mpoko and 
Nkunda like a great deal of needless trouble, 
but the Alo Man assured them that the Wa- 
nkonda would think their huts just as strange 
and outlandish. In some tribes the warriors 
used daggers with the ring-shaped hilt, and 
shields of hide or leather, and some preferred 
the bow and arrow to the spear. The Alo Man 
had seen a king’s palace eighteen feet by twenty- 
five, with plank walls and thatched roof. This 
king owned ivory bows carved at the ends; the 
ivory would have snapped like a dry twig in any 
temperate climate, but the hot steamy air of 
Equatorial Africa kept it elastic. The same 
king had double drinking horns made of a pair 
of eland horns mounted in ivory; he had oil 
dishes of carved ivory shaped like little canoes 
or handled cups, and his women had combs and 
hairpins of carved ivory. The Alo Man had 
been a guest at a royal banquet, at which they 
served soup, sweet potatoes, greens, fish, boiled 
chicken, boiled pork, roast pig, rice pudding, 
and stewed guava. The women of the village 


[ 102 ] 


were proud to find that their own feast would 
have nearly everything on this list and a few 
other dishes besides. 

Mpoko had reached an age when he was 
beginning to wonder about the reason for things, 
and he wondered a great deal about the constant 
danger of raids from enemies outside. He 
knew that he himself would probably be headman 
some day, for his mother was of a family even 
more important than his father’s, and it was 
the mother’s rank that counted in such matters. 
He asked the Alo Man some questions about the 
best way of defending one’s village, and without 
saying anything very definite in reply the Alo 
Man went on to tell the story of the Quarrelsome 
Ants. The story perhaps gained in interest 
from the fact that several different kinds of 
ants were just then busy in plain sight. 



[ 103 ] 


I often see things [the Alo Man began] that 
remind me of the time when all the Ants met 
together in palaver under a large tree, like this 
one, to try to find some way of protecting them- 
selves from their enemies. 

“We have more enemies than any other 
creatures on earth,” groaned the Black Ants. 

“We are perfectly helpless, whatever hap- 
pens,” wailed the Red Ants. “A Centipede 
came to our village yesterday and ate up all our 
slaves before we could do anything.” 

“The other creatures are so large,” lamented 
the Rice Ant. “ They are provided with weapons 
suited especially to hurt us. The Anteater 
came to our hill and poked his long, slender 
tongue down every corridor and into every hole, 
and licked us up by the hundred.” 

“If you had ever known what it was to be 
hunted by Birds,” said the Wagtail Ant, “you 



would think other enemies were hardly worth 
minding.” 

“It does not matter which enemy is the 
worst,” said the Gray Ant. “What we have 
to consider is the way to escape.” 

“Let us live underground,” said the Rice 
Ant. 

“Our enemies can burrow faster than we can,” 
said the Red Ant. 

“It would be better to take to the trees,” 
said the Black Ant. 

“So it might, if you are ready to walk into 
the mouth of some hungry Bird,” said the 
Wagtail Ant. 

“We can learn to fly,” said the Gray Ant. 

“Birds fly much better than we ever could,” 
said the Rice Ant. 

“We shall have to come to earth to eat or 
sleep,” said the Red Ant. 

“And when we do, our enemies will all be 
waiting for us,” said the Wagtail Ant. 

“Then, since we cannot live underground, on 
the ground, in the trees, or in the air, where 
are we to live?” asked the Black Ant. “I see 
no way but to fight.” 

“How do you expect to fight a Centipede?” 
asked the Red Ant. 


[ 105 ] 


“Or an Anteater?” asked the Red Ant. 

“Or a great, pouncing Bird with a beak like 
a spear?” asked the Wagtail Ant. 

Each insisted that his own way of escape 
would be effective and that every other plan 
was foolish and dangerous. 

“There is nothing for us to do,” said the Black 
Ant at last, “but each to live as suits him best, 
for we shall never agree on a way of living that 
will suit us all. For my part, I intend to 
fight.” 

Then the Black Ant and his people fought 
their way through the rest and departed in a 
column across the country. 

The Red Ant built a strong castle with hun- 
dreds of winding passages and chambers, but 
no sooner was it done than the Anteater saw it. 
Clawing his way through the wall, he put in 
his long, slender tongue and licked up the 
inhabitants. 

The Rice Ant burrowed under the earth, 
but no sooner had the many worms and burrow- 
ing insects learned of the new colony than they 
came and ate not only the grown Ants but the 
baby Ants and even the eggs. 

The Wagtail Ant climbed the trees and hid 
under the bark, but Birds with long, slender 


[ 106 ] 


beaks pried into every crack and nipped the 
hidden Ants with their pincers. 

The Gray Ant grew wings and learned to fly, 
and although he succeeded in dodging the 
Birds, he found that when he alighted and 
tried to hide in the leaves, the web of a Hunting 
Spider awaited him. 

Meanwhile the King of the Insects had heard 
of their troubles, and he sent a message to the 
Ants, saying: “You will find safety only in 
union. Join all together, and, small as you are, 
you will be safe.” 

The Beetle, who was sent with the message, 
started out bravely, but bumped into a tree and 
hit himself a blow on the head which knocked 
the message completely out of it. Thus the 
Ants have never received the advice of the 
King. 

Many of the men of the village had been 
listening to this story, and there was silence for 
a time after the Alo Man had finished. 

“It is true,” said one of the hunters at last, 
“we quarrel a great deal among ourselves, and 
we have not been able to agree with the other 
villages even about this expedition.” 

“But our own ways are the best,” said another. 


C 107 ] 


“Why should we change them for those of 
others?” 

“That is what the people of Satu’s village 
say,” said the Alo Man. 

“If there is ever a great meeting in which we 
are to plan how to defend ourselves against 
Tswki,” said Mpoko’s father, grimly, “I think 
we shall have to begin by making a law like that 
of the People of the Bandaged Faces.” 

The others grinned, for they knew that 
story; but Mpoko could not imagine what his 
father meant, and there was no time just then 
td ask. 


[ 108 ] 


CHAPTER IX 


THE FEAST IN THE VILLAGE 

M POKO and Nkunda could not remember 
any feast which was so great a feast as 
the one that celebrated the killing of the ele- 
phants. The preparation of food and the 
cooking of it took nearly every dish, pot, and 
pan to be found in the village. Some of these 
were of wood, some of iron, some of pottery, 
and some of basket-work. The framework of 
the baskets used for food was sometimes of 
wood, with thin strips of cane or narrow splints 
woven in and out, and maybe a wooden rim. 
Sometimes the white wood used for baskets and 
dishes was stained black, and a pattern was cut 
out by carving away the black surface, leaving 
a raised black decoration on white. Baskets 
could be so closely woven that they would hold 
milk. Some were made in the form of a demi- 
john, or bottle, and covered with rubber-like 
juice to make them water-tight, and these 
were generally used to hold beer. 

The pottery used at the feast was partly plain 
and partly decorated. Cooking pots and por- 
ridge pots were straight-sided. Beer pots were 


[ 109 ] 


shaped like an egg with a hole in the end. Water 
jars were made oval with a spreading top, and 
there were round pots to hold the fat, salt, and 
spices used in cooking. Some of this ware was 
colored red with oxide of iron, and some was 
covered with a black glaze. It was made by 
hand, without any potter’s wheel, dried in the 
sun, and then burned in a wood fire. 

The making of the round dishes or cups called 
calabashes was even simpler. Some of them 
were made of gourds with the inside scooped 
out, and some were picked off a tree as they 
were. The curious tree called the baobab, 
which is one of the silk-cotton family of trees, 
bears a large, gourdlike fruit which the natives 
call monkey-bread. The shell is about the 
right size and shape for dishes, bowls, and cups. 

One of the most important articles needed 
for the feast was palm oil, and it was good that 
there was a large supply on hand. In so hot a 
climate, with no ice or ice-boxes, it is out of the 



[ 110 ] 


question to keep butter for use in cooking. 
The palm oil is used for various purposes in 
cooking in place of butter, fat, lard, or olive oil. 
It is made from the fruit of the oil palm, which 
is an olive-shaped, plumlike fruit with a kernel 
inside a thick, fleshy outer envelope. The 
fruit grows in long red and yellow clusters. 
When the men have climbed up the palm tree 
and brought down the bunches, the fruits are 
cut off the main stem and cooked in water until 
they are soft and the kernel is loosened from the 
pulp. Then this pulp is pounded in a large 
mortar to free the kernels, which are put aside 
in a pile, and the thick, orange-colored, oily 
mass is dumped into a hollow log of wood like 
a trough. The log rests on crossed sticks so 




that it slopes at an angle of about forty-five 
degrees, and a pan or jar is set under the lower 
end to receive the oil. Hot stones are mixed 
with the pulp, and the oil, thinned by the heat, 
runs down into the jar. Sometimes the kernels 
are eaten, and sometimes they are pounded up 
to make more oil. 

Palm oil was used for other things besides 
cooking. It could be burned in a homemade 
lamp, — an earthen dish with a floating wick, 
— and it was used for any ordinary purpose for 
which oil is used. Finally, it served the purpose 
of cold cream in massaging and oiling the skin. 
Before a feast, or after any great exertion, it 
was always used in this way, and the dancers 
who were to entertain the company began quite 
early to rub one another’s limbs with oil from 
the little ornamental dishes of palm oil. How- 
ever, there was plenty of oil for all these uses, 
without touching the supply in jars that would 
be carried to the coast traders, to be used in 
some far-away factory for making soap or 
candles. 

Presently the guests began to gather and the 
musicians to play. Besides the drums with 
their boom! boom! boom! there were several 
other instruments — the sansi, a kind of wooden 


[ 112 ] 


piano or xylophone, the marimba, another form 
of the same thing, flutes made of hollow reed, 
and a guitar-like instrument with the body of 
it covered with skin. The dancers soon as- 
sembled, and the rattles tied to their ankles 
and the clapping of the hands of the spectators 
kept time to the wild music. This entertain- 
ment would go on all night, probably for two 
or three nights. 

When it was time for the feast to begin, 
girls and boys went about first of all with water 
in calabashes and jars, that every one might 
rinse out his mouth and wash his hands before 
eating. Mpoko and Nkunda had been taught 
always to do this before a meal, and they had 
also a kind of wooden toothbrush which kept 
the teeth cleaner, if anything, than the ones 
sold in shops. Some people say that the care 
which these tribes take of their teeth is the 


reason why they usually have such very white 
and sound ones. 

The men and women did not eat together. 
The principal men were served first, and after 
they had taken what they chose from the 
dishes, the women and children had the rest in 
their turn. Meat and gravy were cooked in one 
dish, dumplings, kwanga, or cooked rice were 
served in another, vegetables in another. The 
people ate with their fingers. A lump of 
kwanga, dumpling, bread, or cooked rice was 
taken in the fingers and dipped in the broth. 
The dumpling was swallowed whole; it could 
not be chewed, as it would stick to the teeth 
like so much glue, but it would slip down whole 
like an oyster. Groups of friends or relatives 
ate together, and good breeding was shown in 
the special care which every well-brought-up 
guest would take, to eat no more than his proper 
share. Greediness is very unpopular among 
the Bantu, and any unfair division of food is 
regarded as the worst possible manners. 

During the days that the feast lasted, appe- 
tites were saved up for the evening meal, and 
nobody ate anything during the day except 
perhaps a little fruit, a handful of peanuts, or 
some sugar-cane juice. The Alo Man told 


[ 114 ] 


tales, there was much dancing and singing, 
naps were taken at any time of day by those 
who were sleepy, and the children played many 
games. The children often made almost as 
much noise as the grown people, for the boys 
had a band of their own. Nkula, who had a 
biti — a kind of marimba — which he had 
made for himself, was leader. 

A game that was a general favorite was played 
with the biti and the other instruments, and a 
needle. In playing it, the boys divided into 
two camps, Mpoko being captain of one, and 
Satu, a boy from a neighboring village, of the 
other. Boko, one of Mpoko’s players, was 
sent out of sight and hearing, and Mpoko then 
took a needle — a rather large bone needle 
used for raffia or sinew — and hid it so that 
both camps would know where it was. Mean- 
while Satu’s camp had agreed upon a certain 
note in the scale played on the biti, which should 
be the “guiding note.” Then Boko was called 
back to hunt for the needle. When he came 
near the needle, the player of the biti, Nkula, 
who was in Satu’s camp, must sound the guiding 
note, mixing it up with as many variations and 
other notes as he could, and when Boko moved 
away from the needle, the guiding note must 


[ 115 ] 


not be sounded. Of course, if Nkula did not 
keep to this rule Mpoko’s side would make 
trouble for him. To win for his side, Boko must 
not only find the needle but must name the 
guiding note. 

Boko had a quick ear, and he was a shrewd 
boy. Within two or three minutes he was 
nearly sure where the needle was, but he was 
not certain about the guiding note. Satu’s 
side made such a racket that all the notes in the 
scale seemed to be part of it. Mpoko felt more 
than once like calling out “Otuama” (you are 
warm) when Boko stopped two or three times 
almost on top of the needle, but of course that 
would never do. Then Boko walked across 
the ground and came back, went straight to 
the hiding place, picked up the needle, and 
sounded the correct guiding note! 

After they had kept quiet, watching the search 
for the needle, as long as active boys could, they 
played the game called “antelope.” Boko, 
having won in the last game, was antelope. A 
line was scratched on the ground, marking out 
a large court, and all the boys except Boko got 
down on all fours with their faces uplifted. They 
were the hunters, and they tried to touch Boko 
with their hands, or kick him with their feet, 


[ 116 ] 


or butt him with their heads, or pen him up 
between them and the boundary line. Since 
they had to chase him on all fours, Boko had 
an advantage, and once he jumped right over 
a hunter who almost had him. When they 
finally did get him hemmed in and he ran out of 
the ring, they all got on their feet and chased 
him, and Nkula, the first to touch him, was 
antelope in his turn. 

Some of the smaller children were playing a 
game of their own, under a bush where the 
fowls had been having a dust bath. The large, 
black, glossy loso (canna seeds) were used in 
this game. While one player went out, the 
others hid a canna seed in one of five little 
heaps of dirt. The searcher had to sweep away 
the four heaps that did not hold any seed, and 
leave untouched the heap that did. If he 
guessed correctly, it counted one game for his 
side. 

When they were tired of “antelope,” the older 
boys played a rather difficult memory game, 
called “loso,” with forty canna seeds. Satu and 
Mpoko chose sides, and all sat on the ground 
around an open space. Satu, taking twenty 
seeds in each hand, led the play. His side had 
agreed beforehand that the seventh seed thrown 


[ 117 ] 


should be the “playing seed,” and the other 
side would have to guess which it was, and pick 
it up. Satu threw first a seed from the right 
hand, then one from the left, counting aloud 
as he threw until he had thrown ten all together 
— solo, beri, tatu, inno, tano, tandatu, pungati, 
inani, kenda, ikundi. Then he threw down 
the other seeds helter skelter, without counting, 
but so as not to disturb the first ten where they 
lay. 

Then Satu chose Boko to go away out of sight 
and hearing of the game, and Mpoko and his 
players consulted as to which the “playing seed ” 
was. In throwing the seeds, Satu had tried not 
to call attention to pungati, the seventh seed, 
in any way, and had told his players not to seem 
to be watching it when he threw it. They did 
not. They were so very, very careless just at 
that moment that Mpoko wondered if that 
were not the “playing seed.” He took note 
where it fell and saw that it lay near a little 
hump in the ground. When he told his players 
what he thought, they said that he was likely to 
be right, and when he picked up the seventh 
seed and said, “This is the playing seed and its 
name is pungati,” Satu admitted that it was 
and that Mpoko had won. 


[ 118 ] 


Of course, if Satu and his side were dishonest 
players they might deny that the seed picked 
up was the playing seed. But that would do 
them no good, for Boko, who had been sent 
out of sight and hearing, was .a check on them. 
How the check worked was shown when Mpoko 
in his turn threw the seed. This time the 
third seed, tatu, was the “playing seed.” It 
was the turn of Satu’s side to guess, and they 
disagreed. Satu thought it was the fifth, and 
the others were divided between the third and 
the sixth. In the end they took a chance, and 
Satu, picking up the fifth seed, said, “This is 
the playing seed, and its name is tano.” But 
it wasn’t the playing seed. 

Still, Satu’s side had one more chance. 
Mpoko had sent Nkula out of sight and hearing 
before the discussion began, and Nkula would 
have to come back and pick up the playing seed, 
depending on his memory of the way in which 
the seeds lay when he left the circle. Mpoko 
touched tatu, the playing seed, and then called 
Nkula back. Everybody watched, breathless. 
If Nkula touched the wrong seed, Satu’s side 
would still win. But he didn’t. Nkula had a 
good memory, and he remembered that tatu, 
the playing seed, lay at one end of a line of three, 


[ 119 ] 


the only three seeds close together in a straight 
line. He picked it up and said, “This is the 
playing seed, and its name is tatu.” 

It will be seen that it is almost impossible to 
cheat in this game. If Satu had really picked 
up the right seed, and Mpoko had denied that 
he did, then when Nkula came back there would 
have been no right seed on the ground; and if 
Mpoko pointed to the wrong seed, the chances 
were all against Nkula’s guessing that one seed, 
out of the thirty-nine still remaining on the 
ground. 

The old hunters who were looking on very 
much approved of this game, which they had 
played when they were boys, and their fathers 
and grandfathers before them. A good player 
must have a quick eye and a good memory, 
both of which are most needful in hunting. 
As the Bantu proverb has it, “For a running 
antelope one needs a running shot.” 

The next game, Mbele, or the Knife, trained 
not only the eye but the limbs, and was some- 
times played by boys and girls alike. All the 
players stood in line, Satu at the head and 
Mpoko next him. Satu stepped out and faced 
Mpoko, and holding up both hands waved them 
about, and then shot out one hand quickly. 


[ 120 ] 


Mpoko countered with the corresponding hand. 
This was done three times, and the third time 
Mpoko missed, for he was in too much of a 
hurry and answered the wrong gesture. Nkula, 
who came next, failed also; but in Boko, Satu 
met his match, and Boko became “King” in 
his turn, while Satu went to the foot of the 
line. If the King could go down the line 
without meeting his match, the last one in the 
line would be called a slave, and would go out. 
Sometimes — so .Mpoko’s father told them — 
Satu’s father, as King, had gone up and down 
the line until all the other players were slaves. 

Games such as these not only teach the 
players to move promptly, see correctly and 
remember what they see, but give them practice 
in judging by the expression of a person’s face 
what he is about to do or what he is thinking. 
When a boy trained in games of the wits, like 
these, grows up and becomes a chief or a trader, 
it is very hard for any one to deceive him, or to 
read his face when he does not wish his thoughts 
to be known. They are also games which must 
be played fairly if there is to be any fun in them. 

Besides playing their games, the boys wrestled, 
ran races, had contests in high jumping, and 
did as much bragging and arguing as is usual 


[ 121 ] 


in a crowd of boys on a three days’ holiday. 
On the third day the boys from Satu’s village 
and Mpoko and his friends got into an argument, 
and there was a quarrel which attracted the 
attention of the fathers and led to punishment. 

That evening Mpoko remembered something. 
He sidled over to the Alo Man, who was just 
then sitting by himself mending a marimba, 
and said, “What is the story about the People 
with the Bandaged Faces?” 

“Ho!” said the Alo Man. “Do you think 
that fashion is a good one?” 

“I don’t know,” said Mpoko. “I should 
like to see some people with their faces 
bandaged.” 

“Perhaps they might like to see you with 
yours bandaged, too,” said the Alo Man. 
“However, this is the story.” 

Once the Rabbit went on a long journey, and 
lost his way. When he had wandered a long 
time he came to a town where there was a market 
place, but the market place was very still. 
There were many people, wearing bandages of 
white cloth over their faces, who were coming 
and going and exchanging their produce for 
brass rods, mirrors, trader’s cloth, and ivory 


[ 122 ] 


trumpets. But none of them said a single 
word. 

“Ho!” said the Rabbit, “this is a very queer 
place. Curious kind of people these must be.” 

He spoke to one and another, asking for food 
and oil and offering to pay, but although they 
gave him all that he needed and took his beads 
in payment, not one of them said a word in 
reply. 

It was so queer in that place that the Rabbit 
began to be frightened, and at last he left the 
market place and went on, looking back over his 
shoulder until he was out of sight. When he 
came to a house he found an old man, and he 
asked the old man what was the matter with the 
people of that market, who went and came and 
bought and sold, and never said a word. 

“That is their custom,” said the old man. 
“A long time ago they got into the habit of 
quarreling and arguing with one another until 
nobody had any peace from morning till night. 
Each market day it was worse than the last. 
Finally the King heard of it and was angry with 
them for their foolishness, and he made a law 
that in that village, when the people went to 
market, each must leave his lower jaw at 
home.” 


[ 123 ] 


CHAPTER X 


HOW THE CARAVAN SET FORTH 

W HEN the great feast was over and the 
guests had gone home, it was time to 
begin in earnest preparations for the caravan. 
This had been discussed by the headmen in the 
intervals of feasting and entertainment, and it 
had been agreed that one of the best-known 
wizards of that country should come and make 
luck charms and see that everything was 
properly done when the company took its de- 
parture. As this village was farther down the 
river than the others, it was to be the place of 
meeting. 

Among other matters, the men from different 
villages had discussed what goods were most 
likely to be profitable in trading. They all 
agreed that the traders were not like the Bantu 
people, who prefer to do the same things and 
follow the same customs year in and year out; 
the traders were forever changing their minds. 
Things which used to be much in demand were 
now not wanted. The older men, for example, 
could remember how, when they were boys, 
camwood and barwood and African mahogany 


[ 124 ] 


were asked for. It was said that in some parts 
of the forest it paid even now to take ebony and 
teak and other kinds of lumber to the coast. 
But this was only where the logs could go down 
by water. There were too many rapids and 
the distance was too great to make any such 
trade profitable for this village. 

Camwood is very good for cabinet work; it 
is light brown when cut, and with exposure to 
the air turns a beautiful deep red-brown. Bar- 
wood is sometimes used for violin bows. Both 
these trees are cousins of the California redwoods, 
though they do not grow to be giants. But in 
the days when the traders bought the wood, it 
was not for cabinet work; it was for dyestuffs. 
Before aniline dye was invented, the rich dull 
red of Madras handkerchiefs was made by 
boiling the chips of these woods in water. Such 
a dye would not fade like the colors in the cloth 
now sold by the traders. 

The most profitable thing found in the great 
forest storehouse was rubber. Mpoko himself 
had helped get some of the supply of it that 
was waiting to go down to the coast. This 
work of getting rubber is done usually in August, 
or from October to March during the dry season, 
when there is not so much to do on the farms and 


[ 125 ] 


it is pleasanter to work in the woods. The 
women prepare about three weeks’ food for the 
rubber gatherers, who camp in the woods while 
the work goes on. 

The latex, or sap, is collected in various 
ways. A cut may be made in the tree and a 
broken bottle, a large snail shell, or a gourd 
fastened below to receive the sap. Rubber is 
also obtained from lianas or vines which are 
sometimes cut up to let the sap drain into basins 
from both ends of the stem at once. Toward 
evening or in the early morning the sap is col- 
lected and put into iron pots. It is a rather 
thick, milky juice, and the rubber is separated 
from the watery fluid either by boiling or by 
adding lime juice or tannin squeezed from wild 
fruits. Then it is dried, in the form of strips, 
or strips rolled into a ball, or flat cakes, over the 
smoke of a wood fire. Sometimes it is soaked 



[ 126 ] 


in streams to clear out the impurities, a practice 
which adds to its weight but is not honest. One 
man can collect three or four pounds a day, for 
which the trader will pay a shilling a pound. 

Another thing that was going into the packs 
of the porters now was raffia. In the old days 
this was never valuable. Now there seemed to 
be a market for it. It was first exported in 
1890, the price then being from $300 to $350 a 
ton. Later it was about $100. Long before 
it was known to our schools for basket making 
and mat making, the Bantu people used the 
long, tough strips for netting, weaving, and 
many other purposes. 

When the men went into the forest to add 
raffia and some other things to their stock for the 
trading journey, Mpoko and Nkula went with 
them. The forest was a wonderful place even 
to them, who had never known any other 
country, and to a civilized boy it would have 
looked like fairyland. Monkeys leaped and 
chattered in the branches, and birds of many 
sorts, many of them splendid in coloring, hopped 
and flew among the trees. There were wild 
canaries, waxbills, crows, now and then a red- 
tailed gray parrot, and the bright-colored 
plantain-eater, or touraco, as the boys called it. 


[ 127 ] 


This bird, a distant cousin of the cuckoo, has a 
crest like a jay’s, which it can raise or lower, 
and its call sounds almost exactly like “touraco, 
tu-ra-co!” The queer est-looking bird of all, 
perhaps, was the ground hornbill, which is as 
common about African villages as a crow. 
This bird looks as if it had been trying to imitate 
the rhinoceros, for it has a great horny bill with 
a thick lump on what might be called the bridge 
of the nose. It is useful to the villager, for it 
is a sort of street cleaner in feathers, and eats 
garbage, rats, snakes, lizards, and other small 
creatures, with great relish. 

Mpoko and Nkula caught a bunting to take 
home and tame, and they came upon a little 
group of the dome-shaped huts of the weaver 
bird. On the way home the party went out of 
its way to the Red Rocks. This was the name 
the boys had for them, but the place was really 
an outcrop of iron ore, red with rust from the 
air and the dampness. While the men were 



[ 128 ] 


getting out some lumps of ore to be made into 
weapons, the boys went exploring and found 
something surprising on their own account. 

In a little clearing farther up the mountain, 
great yellow globes were shining on the ground 
among coarse vines. They were pumpkins. 
But how came pumpkins away up there, miles 
away from any farm or house? It really 
looked like witchery. But when the hunters 
saw them they laughed and said that the boys 
had happened on the Elephant’s Garden. These 
had sprung up from seeds of the pumpkins car- 
ried off by elephants from some settlement. 

If the loads had not already been heavy 
enough, more of the pumpkins would have been 
carried away, and as it was, the two which 
Mpoko and Nkula carried were quite heavy 
enough before they had a chance to drop them. 
Iron was more important just then. 

Nkula’s father was the smith and ever since 
they could remember, Nkula and Mpoko had 
watched the business of making iron tools and 
weapons. Very few boys outside the jungle 
know as much as these two did about the way 
in which iron is made into useful articles. 

The iron as it is found in that country is not 
so mixed with other minerals as to be hard to 


[ 129 ] 


separate. Sometimes a lump would be found 
almost pure. But in order to make it suitable 
for the blacksmith’s hammer, it had to be 
smelted. A furnace was made of clay, and a 
hole was dug in the ground, big enough to sink 
it in. Around this hole a clay wall was built 
up into a sort of chimney, and a tunnel was 
dug from a little distance away, down to the 
charcoal fire at the bottom of the furnace. The 
fire, which must be kept up to the very greatest 
possible heat, was fed with fresh air through 
this tunnel by means of a goatskin bellows with 
a stone nozzle. After two or three hours of 
uninterrupted heat, there would be a lump of 
pig iron, and the impurities could be hammered 
out and the metal worked into shape on a forge. 

Nkula’s father knew how to make spear 
heads, ax heads, knives with leaf-shaped or 
curved blades, and iron wire, which, when 
passed red-hot over buffalo horn, blackened and 
became nearly rust-proof. Iron wire could also 
be polished and used for ornaments, although the 
people preferred brass wire, which would not 
rust. Among the things which Nkunda’s mother 
treasured was a necklace of grayish-brown 
mottled nuts like pairs of little pyramids set 
base to base, fastened together, not by a string, 


[ 130 ] 



but by little links of iron wire. A cross formed 
of the nuts made a kind of pendant, and although 
nobody in the village knew it, the necklace had 
probably been made in some coast village, for a 
rosary, from the nuts of a eucalyptus or “fever 
tree” near a mission settlement. 

While the preparations for the expedition 
were going on, even the monkeys appeared to 
know that it was a busy time, and they leaped 
and chattered and swung from tree to tree as if 
they too had important affairs on hand. As the 
Alo Man watched them, he was reminded of the 
story of the Scrawny Old Man and the Scrawny 
Old Woman. 


[ 131 ] 


I often tell [said he] of the scrawny old man 
and the scrawny old woman who lived in a hut 
in the forest. They always complained of being 
very poor and having hardly enough to eat, 
but by and by the neighbors noticed that after 
the two had visited at any house, something 
or other was always missed. Then one day a 
neighbor who was sick in bed awoke to see them 
going out of his hut with his bag of cowrie shells 
between them. He shouted and shouted at 
them, but they did not stop, and after a while 
some of the other neighbors heard and came 
running in to see who was being murdered. 

“Oh, oh, oh!” wailed the poor sick man. 
“The scrawny old man and the scrawny old 
woman have been here, and they have taken 
all my cowries and gone away!” 

The neighbors looked at one another and 
nodded. They told the sick man not to wail 
and weep any more, for they would attend to 
getting back his bag of cowries. 

Then they went all together to the house of 
the scrawny old man and the scrawny old woman 
and said, “ Give us back the bag of cowries that 
you stole from the poor sick man, or we will 
beat you with whips of hippopotamus hide!” 

But the scrawny old man and the scrawny 


[ 132 ] 



[ 133 ] 











old woman cried and howled and said that they 
had not taken the bag of cowries. And when 
the neighbors searched the hut they did not 
find it. 

But the neighbors still believed that the 
scrawny old man and the scrawny old woman 
had taken the bag of cowries, and they said, 
“We will come with our whips of hippopotamus 
hide and you shall eat whip until you give 
back the cowries that you stole.” 

Then while the neighbors went to fetch their 
whips, the scrawny old man and the scrawny 
old woman climbed up and got the bag of 
cowries, which they had hidden in the thatch of 
the roof, and ran with it into the forest. But 
they were not quite quick enough. The neigh- 
bors saw them and came after them so fast with 
their whips of hippopotamus hide, that at last 
the scrawny old man and the scrawny old 
woman had to climb into a tree. 

“You shall not come down from the tree,” 
cried the neighbors, looking up at the scrawny 
old man and the scrawny old woman where they 
squatted among the branches, “until you give 
back the cowries that you stole from the poor 
sick man.” 

“We will stay in this tree until they go away, 


[ 134 ] 


and then we will climb down and escape,” said 
the scrawny old man to the scrawny old woman. 

The neighbors heard what he said, and they 
shouted, “We will stay under the tree until you 
come down.” 

“When they go home to get their supper we 
will climb down and run away very fast in the 
dark,” said the scrawny old woman to the 
scrawny old man. 

The neighbors heard her, and they shouted, 
“We will build huts under the tree and take 
turns watching for you to come down.” 

And so they did. 

Days passed, then weeks, then months. The 
scrawny old man and the scrawny old woman 
sat in the tree waiting for the neighbors to go 
away, and the neighbors sat under the tree 
waiting for them to come down. The scrawny 
old man and the scrawny old woman became 
very hungry. First they ate the fruit of the 
tree; then they ate the kernels; then they ate 
the young leaves; then they ate the old leaves; 
at last they stripped the bark off the branches 
and ate that. They grew scrawnier and 
scrawnier every day. Their eyes had sunk in 
their heads with sleeplessness. Their teeth 
grew long and sharp with cracking the kernels 


[ 135 ] 


of the fruit and gnawing the bark from the tree. 
They almost forgot how to talk. 

One day the scrawny old man held out his 
scrawny old hand and said, “See how tough the 
skin is!” And the scrawny old woman held 
out her scrawny old hand and said, “My hand 
is just as tough as yours! ” 

Then they looked at their feet and saw that 
the skin of their feet had grown tough also; 
and their toe nails and finger nails had grown 
long, like claws, with holding on so firmly to 
the branches of the tree. 

“It is very strange,” said the scrawny old 
man. 

“Indeed, it is very strange,” said the scrawny 
old woman. 

Then the new year came with its heavy rains, 
and the scrawny old man and scrawny old 
woman shivered with cold. One morning the 
scrawny old man said to the scrawny old woman, 
“This is very strange. You are all covered with 
hair.” 

And the scrawny old woman said to the 
scrawny old man, “It is surely very strange, 
but so are you.” 

It really seemed as if they were not the same 
persons that they were when they climbed into 
the tree. 


[ 136 ] 


Then one morning the scrawny old man said 
to the scrawny old woman, “I have a very 
strange feeling at the end of my spine.” 

“So have I!” said the scrawny old woman. 
“What can be going to happen now?” 

And behold, each had a tail just beginning 
to grow ! 

The Jackal says it was then that the scrawny 
old man and the scrawny old woman began to 
chatter and shriek at each other as if they had 
lost their wits, but no one can tell whether or 
not they were blaming each other for the strange 
? things that had happened to them, because from 
that day to this no one has been able to under- 
stand what they say. Certain it is that when 
they found their appearance was so completely 
changed, they began to leap from one branch 
to another and from one tree to another, and 
so escaped from the neighbors, who were still 



[ 137 ] 


at the foot of the tree, waiting for them to come 
down. But they let go the bag of cowries in 
their flight, and it fell to the ground and was 
picked up by the neighbors, who carried it back 
to the poor sick man. 

And from that day to this the People of the 
Trees have all been little scrawny old men and 
old women who chase one another from tree to 
tree, and chatter and shriek and quarrel, and 
sometimes come down and steal things from the 
huts, but very seldom are able to keep what they 
have stolen. And from that day to this they 
have not forgotten that they once were people 
and lived in a village, for they build little huts 
in the branches for their young ones, and are 
always watching what the people of the village 
do and trying to be like them. 

It is not known whether the monkey story 
had anything to do with it or not, but during 
the final preparations for the trading expedi- 
tion there was no quarreling and things went 
on in a very orderly and businesslike fashion. 

When the carriers had all come in from the 
other villages, there were more than a hundred 
all together, and last of all the medicine man 
made his appearance. He was a little, wizened, 


[ 138 ] 


shrewd-looking old fellow who carried a charm 
bag and a wooden fetich image which nobody 
would have touched for anything. It must 
have been at least three or four hundred years 
old, for it was a stumpy carved statue of a 
Portuguese sea captain in the dress of the six- 
teenth century, and the wood had tinned almost 
black with age. Nobody in Africa could possibly 
have seen anything like it for many generations, 
and naturally it was thought to be magic. 

The medicine man called all the headmen 
together and sat them down in a circle, he and 
his fetich occupying the middle. On his head 
was a crown of gay feathers, and his costume 
was made up chiefly of rattles, beads, and orna- 
ments of magical power. He made a little 
speech to the fetich, asking it to give good luck 
to the caravan, to keep it safe from danger of 
water, flame, or iron, and to make it successful 
in its dealings. Then he sacrificed a chicken 


to the fetich, and the chicken was solemnly 
cooked and eaten by the company. No one 
in the caravan could after that enter his house 
or turn back upon the road. The medicine 
man selected charms from those in his charm 
bag — herbs, spices, feathers, and little bones 
— and put them in a shell which he set in the 
middle of the trail. Then the caravan was 
ready to start. The long procession of traders, 
porters, headmen, and soldiers moved in a swing- 
ing stride down the path, each one stepping 
over the shell and not looking back. No one 
touched the shell, which was very lucky, and 
whether the medicine man’s ceremonies had 
anything to do with it or not, the expedition 
returned safely in due time, with a tale of good 
luck on the trail and success in the trading. 


[ 140 ] 


CHAPTER XI 


THE HYRAX AND THE ELEPHANT 

T HE returning caravan brought new people 
to the village. It had met an Arab trader 
coming up the river with his porters and some 
armed men for a bodyguard. The Arab could 
speak a little Bantu, and the language he talked 
to his men was a dialect called Swahili, which is 
something like Bantu and is spoken by most of 
the traders. When he saw the villagers’ rubber 
and palm oil and heard about their country, he 
seemed much interested, and wished to try their 
markets. He seemed very glad of their com- 
pany on the journey. 

When he showed his wares, there was great 
excitement in the village. He had brass rods, 
of course, and glass bottles of perfumery that 
smelled stronger than a whole tree in blossom. 
The bottles themselves would do to make into 
bangles; some of the Bantu tribes understood 
how to melt glass and make it into ornaments. 
He had little bright mirrors, gay cloth, and 
knives that were more shiny and attractive 
than any the people had seen, though Nkula’s 
father said that they were not very sharp. The 


C 141 ] 


trader wore clothes all over him, and a white 
cloth on his head; in the sash round his waist 
were stuck strange weapons, and he did not eat 
as they did in the village. He had his own cook. 

The Alo Man did not say much about the 
trader, and he was polite enough to him; but 
Mpoko felt sure that he did not like the stranger. 
It is possible to say many things without words. 

As time went on, pleasant as it was to see all 
these new tilings and share in the presents the 
trader gave, Nkunda and some of the other 
children began to wish he would go away soon. 
Everybody was so cross in these days that there 
was no comfort in living. Even the mother of 
Mpoko and Nkunda, who was usually very 
gentle and kind, had said sharp words now and 
then. In some of the other families the mothers 
whipped the children all round with no excuse 
whatever. 

When the trader and his men had gone to 
the Nkenge market, two days’ journey away, 
every one was glad to hear the drum sound after 
supper for a dance and some story-telling. 
Mpoko climbed up in the big tree under which 
the chief held his councils and gave his judg- 
ments, to get a better view of the dancing. 
When that was over and the story began, he let 


[ 142 ] 


himself down to a lower branch, and lay along 
it like a little tree animal. He was almost as 
much at home in the trees as on the ground. 
Sometimes he would go up to the very tiptop 
of some giant of the forest and perch among the 
cool green leaves, looking out over the great 
green sea of tree tops and tree ferns beneath 
him, and thinking. 

Tonight the story was about the Elephant 
and the Hyrax. One of the hunters that day 
had brought home a hyrax from the rocky 
hillside where he had been hunting, and that 
may have been what reminded the Alo Man of 
the story. The hyrax is a little beast about as 
big as a rabbit and something like one, but with 
ears like a guinea pig; and although neither the 
story-teller nor his listeners knew it, he is a very 
distant cousin of the rhinoceros, the elephant, 
and the other thick-skinned animals. But he 


has no tusks or horns, and he wears a coat of 
grayish-brown fur, and hides in holes among the 
rocks. 

In the days when all the animals lived in 
villages and owned plantations [began the 
Alo Man], there were a Hyrax and his wife 
who had a little son. Father Hyrax was so 
proud of his baby that he told Mother Hyrax 
to ask for anything she liked and she should 
have it. 

“I should like the skin of an Elephant,” 
said she, for she thought that her husband could 
do anything. 

The Hyrax did not know what to say to this 
astonishing request, but he knew that if he did 
not keep his word to his wife she would have no 
respect for him. At last he went to a very 
old Hyrax whose fur was entirely white and who 
lived in a den by himself far up on the mountain, 
and asked his advice. 

“It is almost harvest time,” said the very old 
Hyrax when he had heard the story. “Go and 
ask the Earthworm, the Cock, the Cat, the Dog, 
the Hyena, the Leopard, and the Elephant to 
come and help you with your harvest. When 
they come, you will see what to do.” 


[ 144 ] 


“I do not understand,” said the Hyrax. 

“No matter,” said the very old Hyrax. “Do 
as I tell you, and all will be well.” 

The Hyrax did exactly as he had been told, 
and asked all the creatures to come and help 
him with his harvest. All promised to come. 
Then he went home and waited. 

Early in the morning the Earthworm came 
with his spear and his hoe and went to work. 
Next the Cock appeared with his spear and his 
hoe. 

“Is any one here?” asked the Cock. 

“The Earthworm has come. He is at work 
over there,” said the Hyrax. 

“He will make a fine breakfast for me,” said 
the Cock, and he gobbled the Earthworm and 
went to work. 

Then the Cat came with his spear and his 
hoe. 

“Is any one here?” asked the Cat. 

“The Cock is here. He is at work yonder,” 
said the Hyrax. 

“He will make a good meal for me,” said the 
Cat, and he pounced on the Cock and ate him 
up, and then went to work. 

Then the Dog appeared with his spear and his 
hoe. 


[ 145 ] 


“Is any one here?” asked the Dog. 

“The Cat is here. He is already at work,” 
said the Hyrax. 

“He will make a good dinner for me,” said the 
Dog, and he grabbed the Cat and ate him up, 
and went to work. 

The Hyena came next, and he ate the Dog. 
The Leopard came next, and he ate the Hyena. 
Last of all came the Elephant with his spear and 
his hoe. 

“Is any one here?” asked the Elephant. 

“The Leopard is here and is at work yonder,” 
said the Hyrax. 

“Did any one come before the Leopard?” 
inquired the Elephant. 

“The Hyena.” 

“And before the Hyena?” 

“The Dog.” 

“And before the Dog?” 

“The Cat.” 

“And before the Cat?” 

“The Cock.” 

“And before the Cock?” 

“The Earthworm.” 

The Elephant looked about and did not see 
any of these other animals. 

“What became of the Earthworm?” he asked. 


[ 146 ] 


“The Cock ate him.” 

“And what became of the Cock?” 

“The Cat ate him.” 

“And what became of the Cat?” 

“The Dog ate him.” 

“And what became of the Dog?” 

“The Hyena ate him.” 

“And what became of the Hyena?” 

“The Leopard ate him.” 

The Elephant looked at the Leopard at work 
in the field. 

“Then,” he said, “I must eat the Leopard or 
I shall not be respected by all the other animals. 
But if I am to do this I must come up behind 
him and strike him with my trunk.” 

The Hyrax remembered something. 

“Come with me,” he said, “and I will show 
you a way to go round behind the Leopard 
without his seeing you.” 

Then he led the Elephant along a path in 
the middle of which was a deep hole among the 
rocks, and in the bottom of the hole was a sharp 
stake, and over the hole was a great mass of 
underbrush and vines and grass, all matted 
together. The Elephant stepped on it and fell 
down into the pit on the sharp stake and was 
killed. Then the Hyrax climbed down into the 


[ 147 ] 


pit and skinned him, and brought the skin home 
to his wife. 

All the people laughed and clapped their 
hands and said that the story was a good story, 
and some of them began to sing and dance again. 
Mpoko climbed a little farther up among the 
boughs, crooked his arms and legs around them 
so that he could sit comfortably, and thought 



[ 148 ] 


about the story. It was not so wonderful that 
the Hyrax had killed the Elephant. Not long 
before the hunters of the village had done 
almost the same thing. It struck Mpoko that 
in almost all the stories the little animal got the 
best of the bigger ones by wise planning. While 
he was thinking it over, he went to sleep. 
When he awoke, later in the evening, most of 
the people had gone into their huts, and his 
father with some of the older men sat under the 
tree talking. 

“I am not much like the Hyrax, for I am in a 
trap myself,” thought Mpoko, in disgust. “If I 
get down, they will think I have been listening 
and they will certainly make me eat whip. If 
I keep still until they go away and then get 
down, I shall not be beaten unless I tell what I 
hear, and I shall be very careful not to do that. 
This is a time for the wise man to stay behind 
the hedge of thorns,” — which was one of the 
Alo Man’s proverbs. It means to keep your 
tongue behind your teeth. 

The boy lay along the bough, as flat as a 
squirrel or a lizard, while the palaver went on. 
He did not expect to hear anything interesting 
It would probably be talk about the crops, 
or the things to be bought at the next market, 


[ 149 ] 


or some such matter. But it proved to be a 
terribly fascinating discussion. Mpoko kept 
stiller than ever as he listened. He did not 
know what would happen to him if he should 
be found there. 

The chief and his old men were worried over 
the trader’s doings. In some of his glass bottles 
he had strong drink which took away a man’s 
sense and made him quarrelsome and silly. 
“Drink beer, think beer,” the Bantu proverb 
says; but this was something much worse than 
any of the mild drinks made by the natives. 
Even a little of it would lead a man to make 
the most foolish bargains and tell whatever he 
knew. The trader was spoiling the country, 
they said. 

Then the Alo Man spoke, and he had an even 
more dreadful thing to tell. He had once seen 
this trader coming in from a wild country with 
about twenty slaves, forked limbs over their 
necks, chained to one another and guarded by 
armed men. These men carried weapons which 
could kill from a distance with a great noise. 
The trader’s bodyguard had them, and might 
have more hidden among their wares. 

This was the worst possible news. All the 
people knew what slave raids were. They had 


[ 150 ] 


lived in fear of Tswki for years and years for 
this very reason. His army was so strong that 
he had from time to time come over the moun- 
tain and burned a village and carried off men, 
women, and children to a far country where 
they would never see their own people again. 
But for some time now Tswki had let them alone. 
The Alo Man had heard that in the country 
beyond Tswki’s country there were new rulers 
and new laws, punishing all who took or sold 
slaves. If this were so, it would keep Tswki 
from selling any captives he might take, and 
would make him afraid to raid the villages of 
his neighbors. 

But the village could not send a messenger 
across Tswki’s country to these new rulers to 
get help, even if there were time. The trader 
might have many more men coming to help 
him. His boat, or dhow, was probably hidden 
somewhere down the river, and when he had got 
his slaves he would put them on board and go 
away. Even if they warned the other villages 
and all the fighting men joined to drive him off, 
he could kill them much faster than they could 
kill his men, with his strange weapons. And 
finally, if any such fight happened, Tswki would 
hear of it and might come over the mountain 


[ 151 ] 


to help the trader and get their country for 
himself. 

It was a very bad situation, and it looked 
worse and worse to them the longer they talked. 
The only hopeful fact in sight was that the 
trader did not seem to know anything about 
Tswki. If he had known, he would probably 
have gone to that chief in the beginning, to 
buy slaves and to secure his help in getting more. 
Yet by this time he might have heard almost 
anything from the men who had sold their good 
rubber and oil and provisions for his bottles of 
trade gin. 

Plan after plan was suggested, and there was 
something wrong with each one. At last the 
men separated and went each to his own hut, 
all but the Alo Man, who still sat there in the 
deep shadow, thinking. Mpoko slid very cau- 
tiously down on the far side of the tree, but just 
as he reached the ground the Alo Man spoke 
his name in a low tone. Then Mpoko knew 
that the Alo Man had seen him, but that no 
one else had. 

“I went to sleep in the tree,” he said 
sheepishly. 

“You had better forget what you heard,” 
said the Alo Man. 


[ 152 ] 


Mpoko lingered, digging one bare brown toe 
into the earth. 

“Uncle,” he said, “we are like the Hyrax 
who had to trap the Elephant.” After a pause 
he added, “The Hyrax did it.” 

The Alo Man gave Mpoko a quick glance, 
pleased and surprised and interested. “What 
is inside your mind, Mpoko?” he asked. 

“This,” said Mpoko. “There is a deep 
elephant pit on the trail over the mountain to 
Tswki’s country. The hunters found it when 
they were chasing the hyrax today. Tswki 
has much ivory, and the trader loves ivory. 
He asks about it all the time.” 

The Alo Man’s mind began to link itself with 
Mpoko’s as one monkey swinging through the 
tree tops catches the paw of another. “Go on, 
my son,” he said. 

“We are a little people,” said Mpoko. “We 
cannot fight the trader. But Tswki could, 
and he would do it if he were angry. If the 
trader came to take his ivory, Tswki would be 
very angry. The trader has many men to 
serve him. But if they were in the elephant 
pit, they could not serve him.” 

“Eh-eh-eh-eh!” chuckled the Alo Man, as a 
plan dawned upon him. “You are as wise as 


the very old Hyrax himself. Go now to sleep, 
or your head in the morning will be as white as 
his.” 

Mpoko was not sure whether the Alo Man 
really thought his ideas worth anything, or 
not. But on the next day there was another 
and a better palaver, and a plan was worked out 
by the chief and the Alo Man and the wisest of 
the old men, in which Mpoko, as was only right, 
had a chance to do his part. 

Word went out to all the friendly villages to 
watch the river for any sign of strange boats or 
men. When the Arab trader came back from 
the market, the river villages knew exactly 
what they were going to do. 

The Arab had planned to take each village 
by itself, beginning with this one, attack the 
people suddenly by night, kill all who were 
not able to travel, and send the others down 
with a guard to the place where his boat was 
waiting. Before the news of the raids had gone 
out so that the people of the country could resist 
him, he would be away. 

But now he began to hear stories of a chief 
on the other side of the mountain who had 
much ivory. Slaves, in the trade slang, were 
called “black ivory,” but this ivory was the 


[ 154 ] 


real kind — solid elephant tusks. It struck 
the trader that if he could get this ivory and 
make his new slaves carry it, this would turn 
out to be a very profitable trip indeed. 

The question was, how to get the ivory. From 
all accounts Tswki was a strong, fierce chief, 
and it might be dangerous to go into his country 
with as small a force as the trader had. The 
Arab had not enough goods to pay for very 
much ivory, and he did not wish to pay for it if 
he could get it without paying. He might 
catch his slaves and go down to the coast, and 
come back with a larger party of armed men; 
but after slave raiding here once it would not 
be nearly so easy to travel through the country 
again. He thought of trying to get the people 
of the river villages to join him in raiding 
Tswki’s country, but they all seemed so afraid 
of that chief that he did not believe they would 
do it. He kept asking questions about the 
ivory, and by the time he had finished trading 
and was ready to go back down the river, he had 
heard so much about it that he dreamed of it 
every night. He felt that somehow or other 
he must have that ivory or he would be sorry to 
the end of his days. 


[ 155 ] 


CHAPTER XII 


A VOICE IN THE FOREST 

T HINGS were very unsatisfactory to the 
trader on the last night of his stay as a 
guest in the village. He had intended it to be 
the last night that he or any of the people of 
the village should sleep in those huts. But if 
he carried out his first plan, and fell upon them 
in the dark hours just after midnight, killing, 
burning, and plundering, and then taking up his 
march to the next village to do the same thing, 
he would have to give up all hope of the ivory. 
While he was sitting by himself, trying to think 
of a way out of the difficulty, Mpoko stole up 
to him in the dark and pulled at his sleeve. 
“Come quickly,” he murmured, “there is a 
palaver going on behind the ruined huts, and it 
is about ivory.” 



[ 156 ] 


The Arab was naturally suspicious, and the 
life that he had led had made him more so. He 
had been almost sure in the last day or two that 
there was something he had not yet found out 
about that ivory. He knew a great deal about 
native tribes, and he was aware that they are 
very good at hiding anything they do not wish 
to have known. He remembered that Mpoko 
had been limping about the village as if suffer- 
ing from a severe beating; indeed, the boy 
seemed hardly able to walk now. That was 
just what would have happened if he had heard 
something his elders were saying and they had 
found it out. And what could be more natural 
than that he should revenge himself by telling 
what he had heard? The trader would have 
done that himself in Mpoko’s place. 

Mpoko slid along in the shadow and dropped 
on all fours, signing to the trader to do likewise. 
They wormed along through tall grass and 
thorn bushes and thickets for what seemed 
hours and hours, in the dark. Mpoko would 
have liked to lead the Arab round and round 
the village all night. As it was, they followed 
a very roundabout cattle track, and the trader’s 
clothes, which were not made for crawling, 
suffered a great deal from thorns and mire. 


[ 157 ] 


At last they reached a pile of ruined thatch 
and mud wall, and sure enough, there were men 
on the other side of the heap, talking together 
in low tones. Mpoko ducked into the shadow 
and vanished like a scared rabbit. The trader 
crouched motionless, his hand on his dagger, 
listening. 

“Then everything is ready?” said the chief. 

“Everything,” said the smith. 

“And the stranger does not suspect?” said 
the oldest of the villagers. 

“I think,” said Mpoko’s father, “that he has 
quite given up any thought of the ivory now. 
We have scared him very well.” 

“What a joke it will be?” said the smith, 
“when we tell people that the stranger was 
afraid of Tswki!” 

“A feeble old man without sons,” said one of 
the hunters, “and all that ivory which the 
trader, with his strong men armed with the 
weapons that kill far off, does not dare to go 
and take!” 

“It is all the better,” said the chief, rising. 
“When the trader has gone, we will get the ivory 
and carry it to the trading station ourselves.” 

Then the group of men went away, and the 
Arab, gritting his teeth with rage, found his 


[ 158 ] 


way back to his own tent. His mind was quite 
made up. He would break camp early in the 
morning and go straight oyer the mountain 
into Tswki’s country and get that ivory and, 
if possible, a gang of slaves. Then he would 
come back and punish the villages, and if there 
were any joke to be told it would be on them, 
not on him. 

He got Mpoko into his hut while his porters 
were packing, and questioned him closely. It 
was not for nothing that Mpoko had played biti 
and other games in which he had learned not to 
show his feelings. He said that what the trader 
had heard of Tswki was indeed true. He had 
not given them any trouble for a long time 
— many years. Mpoko had heard that there 
was a stockade of elephant’s tusks, all picked 
for their great size, round the group of huts 
in which Tswki lived with his family. Remem- 
bering what the Alo Man had told of the riches 
of the king whom he had visited, Mpoko 
described the carved ivory oil dishes and knife 
handles, the war trumpets and combs and 
bowls, which he said he had heard that Tswki 
had. White men would give many, many 
brass rods for such things, but until now it had 
not been safe to try to get them. Now the 


[ 159 ] 


villages had agreed to forget all private quarrels 
and join in raiding Tswki’s country. Yes, 
Mpoko knew the road up the mountain. No, 
it was not very easy to find. One might get 
lost in the forest. He would not like to show 
the trader the way, because it might get him 
into trouble with his father. 

The trader pulled at his black beard impa- 
tiently. It would not do to get lost in the 
forest. Neither would it do to arouse suspicion. 
Mpoko suggested that the Alo Man also knew 
the road up the mountain. The trader asked 
if the Alo Man would be the guide. Mpoko 
thought he would hardly do that, but he was 
going to visit Tswki, and Mpoko might get 
leave to go with him for a few miles and then 
slip away and join the trader. This seemed a 
good idea, and the trader agreed. He was 
glad that the Alo Man would be out of the way 
when the villages were raided, for he had an 
uneasy notion that with a good leader the people 
might give him some trouble. If they traveled 
fast, they could overtake the Alo Man before 
they got to Tswki’s country and could make 
sure that he would give them no further trouble. 

The Alo Man had already gone when the 
trader and his men set forth. In fact, he had 


[ 160 ] 


gone the night before, although nobody knew 
it but the chief and one or two other people. 
Mpoko kept a little ahead of the trader’s party, 
swinging from tree to tree like a monkey, or 
peering back from behind a thorn bush or grass 
clump. Just as the trail began to be hard to 
find, he dropped to the ground and stood waiting 
for them as they came panting up the path. 

Very little was said as the Arab and his men 
followed the slim brown figure of the boy through 
the jungle. Every man had firearms, and they 
had given a little shooting exhibition the day 
before that had impressed the people deeply. 
The Arab felt sure that when he got ready to 
take his prisoners, they would be too scared to 
make any fight. He expected to have some 
trouble getting the ivory, but he was not a 
coward and did not mind fighting when he was 
sure that he would win in the end. He counted 
very much on the surprise he would give the old 
chief when he made the attack. Each one of his 
men, with gun and revolver, was equal to many 
Africans armed only with spears, and according 
to all accounts Tswki depended on the strength 
of his town there on the hillside and not on a 
strong guard. 

Of course the trader did not know that about 


[ 161 ] 


an hour after he left the village, Mpoko’s father, 
with every fighting man he could muster, in full 
war dress, with feather headdresses, long spears, 
round hide-covered shields and horn-handled 
knives, had started up that very trail. The 
men of the village had come on at such a pace 
that they had to check themselves for fear of 
catching up with the men they were following. 
A scout was sent on now and then to make sure 
that the Arab was still going up the mountain. 

From time to time other parties of warriors 
came in from trails that branched off into the 
forest. By the time the belt of forest began to 
grow thinner and the trail came out on the rocky 
open ground above, there was a very consider- 
able band of grim, fierce-looking spearmen 
crowding up through the trees and crouching 
behind bushes. 

Mpoko looked back and caught a glimpse of 
the flutter of plumes. He pointed up the 
mountain to a pile of boulders clear against the 
sky on the top of the ridge. 

“That is the way to Tswki’s country,” he 
said. “I do not dare to go any farther. I 
may get beaten as it is.” 

“You will get something worse than a beating 
if you don’t come,” said the Arab. “Come 


[ 162 ] 


with us and we will give you a share in the 
ivory. Go back and you will be killed.” 

Mpoko had not counted on this. He looked 
at the pile of rocks far above, and at the sun- 
burnt bare slope strewn with boulders. He 
looked at the forest behind. He was sure from 
what he had seen of the Arab’s shooting that he 
would not live to get back to the shelter of the 
trees. He dug one toe into the earth and 
whimpered. “Do not shoot,” he said. “I 
will go.” 

Laden with their guns, the Arab’s men could 
not climb as fast as Mpoko could, and he kept 
some distance ahead. The trail made a turn 
toward the right, about halfway to the top, and 
here the elephant pit had been formed by the 
washing out of a deep hole in the rainy season. 
It was covered over with woven grass and boughs, 
and it looked as if the long grass had blown 
over the trail just there. Mpoko scampered 
across and ducked behind a boulder beyond. 
Out from the woods came streaming a company 
of tribesmen, shouting and waving their spears. 
The Arab looked at the pile of rocks above, 
and saw that behind those rocks he and his 
men could defy any number of enemies with 
spears. The warriors behind them were not 


[ 163 ] 


yet within range of the firearms, but they soon 
would be. The slave traders began to run. If 
they could not get to the top, at least they 
could get behind the boulders where the road 
made that turn. 

Then down they tumbled into a great hole. 
The woven screen of foliage held long enough 
to let them all get on, and then gave way, 
exactly as it would do if an elephant were to 
step on it. The trader’s men went down all 
in a heap, and a revolver or Two went off in the 
confusion. They could hear the yells of the 
men coming up the hill. 

The Arab could not make out at first what 
had happened. He knew he had been trapped, 
but he could not see how it had been done. The 
walls of the hole were of solid rock, much too 
high to climb, and overhung the bottom of the 
pit. 

Of course, no one could get at him and his 
men to kill them without taking a chance of 
being shot, but they could be left there to starve 
or die of thirst. The Arab had left many of his 
prisoners to starve or die of exhaustion by the 
roadside, and now he knew how they had felt. 
It was not at all pleasant. 

A cheerful jabbering seemed to be going on 


[ 164 ] 


outside. After some time the Alo Man’s voice 
could be heard, speaking alone. 4 ‘ Listen, men ! ’ ’ 
it said. “We can do nothing as long as they 
have their weapons. Let us give them a chance 
to live. If they give up their weapons, we can 
talk to them.” 

The Arab made up his mind quickly. “Let 
down a rope,” he shouted in the clearest Bantu 
he knew, “and we will tie our guns to it.” 

After a little talk, a couple of long leather 
thongs were flung over the edge of the pit. The 
Arab thought he might be able to keep back some 
of the weapons, but he found that whoever was 
in command seemed to know exactly how many 
there ought to be. Then the edge of the pit 
was ringed with fierce, feather-crowned faces 
looking down at the captives, and there was 
more talk. Finally the slave traders were pulled 
out and set in the midst of the crowd, each 
guarded by a tall and active spearman, and 
feeling very much depressed and frightened. 



[ 165 ] 


They knew that if the villagers chose to be 
disagreeable, they could be very disagreeable 
indeed. 

One of the chiefs, a very tall and commanding 
figure in a splendid leopard-skin robe, was 
Tswki himself, as the Arab discovered with 
horror and dismay. The Alo Man was talking 
to this chief and trying to make him agree to 
something. 

“Hear now this plan,” said the Alo Man, 
persuasively. “It is true that these men have 
planned to come into your country and make 
war, and steal your ivory, and you have seen 
for yourself that they came with weapons in 
their hands and sent no messenger to tell you 
of their coming and ask permission to enter 
your village. You know also that they are 
taking slaves wherever they can, against the 
new law. If you kill them, as they deserve, they 
will do no more harm, it is true [the Arab’s 
teeth began to chatter]; but they will do you 
no good. On the other hand, if you tie them 
and march them under guard across your 
country to the white men, they will do you great 
good. You will then be able to say to the 
white men: ‘See, I have kept your words in 
my heart. I found these men, who are wicked 


[ 166 ] 


and sell men and women against the law, coming 
to catch slaves in my country. If you search 
their packs you will find fetters that they in- 
tended to put on the slaves they captured. I did 
not kill them, although I could have done so. 
I did not let them go free to carry off the people 
of some other chief. I have brought them to 
you for punishment, because you have said 
that this is right. I have done this so that 
you may know that I am a good man and speak 
the truth.’ Then the white man will believe 
that you are a good man, and he will be your 
friend. It is very good when one has powerful 
friends.” 

This was probably the first chance that 
Tswki had ever had to be thought a good, 
honest man. The newness of it may have 
interested him. He was surprised that the 
village people had not killed the slave traders 
themselves without calling on him, but really 
it was much more clever to have done this. 
They could not have taken their prisoners to 
the white men without going through his 


country. Now he would get the credit of it all. 
Tswki was not called “The Snake” for nothing. 
He saw that the plan was a wise one. The 
snake is thought by African tribes to be very 
wise. 

“Your plan is good,” said Tswki finally, after 
thinking it over. “That is what I will do.” 

“Listen, you men,” said the Alo Man in 
Swahili to the trader’s party. “You came into 
our country pretending friendship and planning 
wickedness. We know that you tried to come 
into this chief’s country and steal his ivory 
and his people, because you thought that he 
was old and feeble and could not fight you. 
[Tswki gave a kind of grunt.] You have 
weapons which kill with a noise from a long 
way off, and you trust in these to make you 
strong, like the elephant raging in the jungle. 
But you have fallen into a pit through the plan 
of a boy, and your strength has been taken from 
you as the Elephant’s skin was taken by the 
little Hyrax. You are to be sent to the officers 
in the white man’s country, who have made 
laws to stop the stealing of men and women and 
children, and the spoiling of our country with 
the drink in the square-faced bottles. Your 
men will wait for you awhile and go away. If 


[ 168 ] 


they try to come up the river, we will stop them. 
Now we have no more to do with you, for you 
belong to Tswki.” 

Tswki had been listening attentively to this 
speech, for he understood some Swahili. He 
had a word to add. 

“If the other men come up the river to steal 
your people,” he said, “we will take them also 
to the officers to be punished.” 

This showed how Tswki’s ideas had changed 
in the last hour or two. He had never before 
said “we” when speaking to a chief of the river 
villages. 

Well pleased with their day’s work, Tswki 
and his men moved off down the other side of 
the mountain. Well pleased with themselves, 
the Alo Mal$ the chiefs, and their people moved 
off down the slope on this side. They carried 
with them the goods of the traders, including 
the guns, revolvers, powder, and shot, which 
they tumbled into the river. 

The Alo Man was happy because, for once, 
the people of the different villages had united 
against an enemy; even Tswki had shown 
signs of friendliness! His white teeth flashed 
in a joyous smile as he began making a song of 
triumph about the trader and the elephant pit. 


[ 169 ] 


Mpoko also was happy. He was thinking 
that when he was a chief he would rule wisely 
and keep his people safe from all enemies, as 
his father and the other chiefs and the Alo Man 
had done that day. He was wondering also 
about those strange new rulers who had said 
that the stealing of men and women and children 
must stop, and who did not approve of the drink 
that took away a man’s senses and made him 
do silly things. Mpoko felt that he had seen 
and heard and done a great deal since last night. 

The people in the village, waiting to catch 
the first sound of the Alo Man’s drum, heard 
far away the tap-tap- tapping that sent through 
the forest the glad news that all was right. The 
women began to prepare all sorts of good things 
for the evening meal, and as the sun went down 
upon the peaceful village and the shining river 
and the great mountain standing up out of the 
level country beyond the forest, the Alo Man 
and his company came home. 


[ 170 ] 




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2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 

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INSECT ADVENTURES 1 

By J. HENRI FABRE 

Selected and Arranged for Young People by Louis Seymour Hasbrouck | 



This is the first time that Fabre’s writings have been 
made available for school use, and the book will prove 
a delight to school children wherever they are given the 
chance to read it. No live boy or girl could fail to be 
interested in nature subjects presented by so gifted a 
naturalist as Fabre in the form of such absorbing ad- 
ventures. 


The many quaint sketches with which the book has been 
illustrated by Elias Goldberg complete its charm. 


A useful index is included. 


Cloth. 300 pages. Price $1.48. 


WORLD BOOK COMPANY 


Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York 
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 


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A NEW supplementary reader in nature study for the 
intermediate grades. A book containing a vast 
amount of information relating to insect life — the life 
story of the spider, the fly, the bee, the wasp, and other 
insects — told by one who was at once a lover of nature, a 
great scientist, and a most entertaining writer. Maeter- 
linck calls Fabre the “insects’ Homer,” and declares that 
his work is as much a classic as the famous Greek epic, 
and deserves to be known and studied as a classic. 


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NEJV-WORLD HEALTH READERS 
Edited by John W. Ritchie 

! A CHILD’S BOOK OF THE 
| TEETH 

By Harrison Wader Ferguson, D.D.S. 

Illustrated by the author 

I. This Little Book Interests Children in Their Teeth, 
Through 

1. Numerous attractive, whimsical drawings which caricature the teeth. 

2. Quaint rhymes. Vital information is presented in a most amus- 
ing way. 

3. Simple expression. The text is suited to the understanding of 

| pupils as low as the third grade. 

| II. It Teaches Children Why They Should Care for 
| Their Teeth, by 

1. Showing how easily teeth are lost if they are not given con- 

= stant attention. 

2. Explaining the consequences of the loss of teeth. 

3. Making clear the child’s own responsibility for keeping his 
teeth by keeping them clean. 

| III. It Teaches Children How to Care for Their Teeth, 

| Through 

1. Accurate illustrations indicating the correct use of the tooth-brush. 

2. Directions so plain that the child cannot fail to understand just 

| what he should do. 

3. Recommending regular visits to the dentist, who is represented 

| as a friend that can assist the child to avoid tooth troubles. 

| If habits of oral hygiene are to be formed at all, they must 
| be instilled while the child mind is most plastic; but exist- 
| ing texts that deal with oral hygiene at all are too difficult 
| for young pupils. Dr. Ferguson’s book is adapted to the 
| use of children in grades three, four, and five; but it will be 
1 found amusing and profitable to older pupils. It is the 
I only text of its kind, and it deserves a place in every pri- 
| mary course of study. 

| Price 52 cents 

WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York 
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 


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1 

= 


( ELIZABETH V. BROWN’S 

NATURE AND INDUSTRY 
| READERS 

* | AHESE books draw upon the world’s best literature, 
and present well-selected nature material and 
I stories of industry. They are adapted for use either 

as readers, or to supplement nature, geography, and his- 
tory lessons. 

STORIES OF WOODS AND FIELDS 

Alluring stories of animals, with chapters on our national holi- 
g days. For fourth and fifth grades. 

Cloth. 192 pages. Illustrated in colors. Price $1.00. 

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 

A fascinating story of the development of modern means of com- 
munication, transportation, agriculture, etc. Affords material for 
supplementary history lessons. For fifth or higher grades. 


Cloth. 160 pages. Illustrated. Price 80 cents. 

STORIES OF CHILDHOOD AND NATURE 

Stories of unusual interest, by some of the greatest and most 
gifted authors. Much of the material is of pronounced geo- 


| graphic value. For fifth and sixth grades. 

Cloth. 222 pages. Illustrated. Price $1.00. 

| WORLD BOOK COMPANY | 

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York 
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 

B S 

£ = 

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KATUHF AND INDUSTRY RfADEKS 



• Stories of ■ 

WOODS AND 
FIELDS 

Brown 

| n WONUJ ' BOOK ' COMPANY $ 


. NATURE AW ismiStkY ;RLA0m 



WHEN THE 
WORLD WAS ij 
YOUNG 

' Brown 4ii , 

I? WORU> . BOOK COMPACT; 



• Stories of ■ j 

CHILDHOOD 
AND NATURE 

Brown 


WORLD BOOK ; COMPANY 


— 


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INTERAMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL READERS 
= = 

| | 

| A Central American Journey ( 

By ROGER W. BABSON 

= a 

~ y~ "y ERE is a geographical reader for grade five or six, dealing with 

I a perfectly new field, being a children’s book based on the big 1 
| AX adventure of big business in the Central American export field 

| The family of an American business man accompany him on a tour of 

| Central America. They have many friends there and see not only 

| the customs and scenery of the country but the way in which people 

| live in their homes. Moreover, they see how our foreign trade | 

1 should be handled to bring about closer relations with our country and | 

| theirs, and learn many picturesque and more or less amusing facts 

I about the mistakes which have been made. 

| While the interest of the book lies primarily in the things the children | 

| see and hear and do, rather than in any definite plot, there is plenty of | 

f incident, as they visit a gold mine, cacao, coffee, and banana planta- I 

| tions, a balsam forest, and Indian villages; they travel in unfrequented | 

| regions and experience two earthquakes. 

I The two Carroll children, boy and girl, have become intimate with a | 

| little Central American girl, daughter of a professor in one of the uni- | 

| versities, and have learned Spanish from her. The practical ad van- | 

| tages of a knowledge of Spanish are brought out in the course’ of the 

§ Gtory. | 

The tendency of the book is to give American children not only an in- | 
| terest in this picturesque region, but the right view of its people. 

S , ss 

| A part of the educational value is derived from the fact that without | 

| much direct instruction, the importance of accuracy, correct informa- | 

| tion, system, and practical experience, and ability, in foreign trade, is | 

| shown. M 

a , Ej 

| The illustrations from photographs are of great value. The drawings | 

| add to the attractiveness of the volume. § 

| The author is the famous statistician, who has visited this country | 

| often, and who writes as entertainingly and informingly as he does § 

| for the readers of his books and magazine articles. 

Cloth, lx + 219 pages. 

Price $ 1 . 40 . 

WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

a £ 

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York 

2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago | 

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